


Just Friends

by blueberry01120



Category: Journey into Mystery, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alpha Thor (Marvel), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awesome Frigga (Marvel), Caught, Friends With Benefits, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Home for Christmas, Jealous Thor (Marvel), Knotting, Loki and Thor Are Not Related, M/M, Meeting the Family, Minor Balder/Nanna, Omega Loki (Marvel), POV Loki (Marvel), Snowball Fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:08:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25778686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberry01120/pseuds/blueberry01120
Summary: Loki's college roommate Thor — who is somehow both the hottest man alive and his best friend with certain long, thick benefits — invites him home for Winter vacation. Considering Loki's "home situation," it's a no-brainer. Nothing could go wrong with Thor's family that'd be worse than the best that'd happen with Loki's. However, when an alpha brings an omega home to a family like Thor's, well, there are assumptions, but Loki swears they're just friends. Because they are, right?Right.
Relationships: Loki/Thor (Marvel), Minor Loki/Other Character
Comments: 21
Kudos: 163





	Just Friends

**Author's Note:**

> P-p-p-purge continues. But yeah, I've been purging WIPs and this is yet another. It's v fluff with minimal but the requisite amount of angst

“You should come home with me” had been phrased as a suggestion but the stare trying to pin Loki to his bed until Thor received the answer he desired exposed it for the question it was.

“I don’t know. Can I think about it?” bought him a week of Thor asking, “Thought about it enough?” and active aggressively telling others, “Yeah, Loki might be coming home with me, but who knows?” Screw Loki for not wanting to trade one awkward situation for possibly another. He’d met Thor’s family on move-in day, yes, but move-in was social lube like coming into their home for Winter vacation would not be.

But could it get much worse than whatever was on the end of, “ _I’m going to Mom’s. Býleistr’s going to Dad’s. Your choice, bro :shouldershrug_ :”?

Loki asked the gray towel maintaining what little sanity he had, “Is the offer still open?”

_All_ of the skin showing seemed to smile along with Thor’s mouth. “Yeah.” Thor delivered his fresh mountain summit air body wash and the comfort of sleeping in on Saturday to Loki, finding himself space that wasn’t there on Loki’s bed just to pat Loki on the grey area of his thigh. “It’s good that you said yes because I already told them you were coming.”

“Of course, you did.”

“Mom’s so happy to see you. She’s barely happier to see me.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“She has to be happier to see me. I’m her favorite.”

“Are you sure that’s not Balder, the human ray of sunshine?”

“Positive.”

Before Thor could get any funny ideas, Loki reminded him about that lecture he had in an hour.

“I know. I know.” Thor’s back dimples took over the duty of making sure Loki was aware of how pleased Thor was. If Loki’d tilted his head, he supposed that Thor’s ass could’ve been considered a smile, a pinchable, slappable, reason-for-Loki-to-open-his-laptop-and-put-on-his-headphones smile.

Loki put packing their belongings together on the table he was proud to say. Not only would it mean that if Loki’s bags were lost, Thor would have to suffer to — which Loki did not say out loud — there was less to carry. “I would’ve been carrying your bags anyway,” said Thor, but he placed his folded sweaters into the space Loki’s vacuum bags left and turned the suitcase into an organized chaos of clothes, socks, and snacks they did not sell in Norway.

As Thor locked their dorm’s door, he said over his massive two-carry-on-supporting shoulder, “This is going to be so fun, man.”

Oh, Loki hoped.

#

Unfortunately for the Playboy Bunny moonlighting as a flight attendant and the flirting she had in mind handing both Thor his water and a glimpse of all the cleavage Loki would never have, Loki’s shoulder was a comfy enough pillow for Thor to sleep on.

The diareses on the signs on the tarmac were like their own Christmas morning.

After he blinked away the sleep to wakeful squint levels, Thor shared Loki’s appreciation for Scandinavia in a less anti-American way, smiling the dozen wrinkles into the corners of his eyes over this familiarity that went much farther back than anything in Boston for either of them. He shotted his coffee, presenting the gold sparkles of stubble that’d reached the top of his neck to the airport terminal, and celebrated the few hours they had left until they were home, fully home for all-Norwegian Thor.

“We should come here for Spring break or something,” said Thor, his sweep of the waiting area offering him waves and giggles from the copy-pastes of a cute girl their age that he couldn’t help returning minus the giggle.

“Maybe.”

The flight attendants had Loki’s sincerest apologies for both giving Thor the window seat and keeping him occupied with episodes of _Trek_. Better luck next time.

To deter any opportunists taking Thor having his phone out as their chance to encumber him with their number, Loki gently coaxed them toward the wall and let Thor have the freedom to try to figure out international data himself by being his human barrier.

“Got it. Yes! So… Father said he’ll be by baggage claim, and that was 20 minutes ago.”

Odin, Living Contempt. Great.

“I have to piss,” Loki said. “I’ll meet you there.”

“No, I should too.”

It’d never be less unnerving pissing next to Thor, however sound his “if I’m next to you, no creep will try to” logic was. Flaccid Thor — the marginally less impressive version than Erect Thor — marginally — was not what Loki needed in his brain when preparing the final form of his composed self for Odin’s consumption.

A Santa Claus beard and hair combo had never had Loki so clenched.

“Boys.”

Thor engulfed Odin in a hug.

Odin’s one eye opened on Loki and stayed there as he and Thor separated. “Loki, a pleasure to see you.”

Loki held out a hand that Odin took and crushed. “You too, Mr. Borson.”

“Odin. Such formalities leave them to the Anglos. You’re home now.” Finally, he stopped looking for the “in” to Loki’s thoughts. “I’ve managed to find the bags you’ve brought. Packed lightly.”

Loki did not mind having Thor between him and Odin. “I suggested that we pack jointly. There were less bags that way.”

“I wouldn’t have expected that from you, Loki. I’m glad to have been proven wrong.” Whatever that meant. The shadiness of it, however, was understood.

Býleistr’s text couldn’t have been more well-timed for Loki third-wheeling Odin and Thor catching up in the front of Odin’s truck. _“You land yet?”_

_“Just did._

_“When do you leave for Iceland?_

_“Tomorrow morning.”_

“I see you’ve fallen victim to your phone” met the criteria of annoyed to be likely addressed to Loki, likelier with Odin saying it in the direction of the rearview mirror, and he wasn’t talking to the car behind them.

“I was checking in with my brother.”

“Býleistr?” Thor asked.

“Ah, the older one,” Odin said before Loki even replied, “Yes.”

Loki’s attention secured, Odin continued drilling Thor about how his final exams had gone, ignoring how disinterested Thor was in rehashing it. “I’m sure they were a breeze for you, Loki.”

“They weren’t as bad as they could’ve been.”

Thor exhaled and asked about Odin’s adventures in businessmanning.

Thor’s family hadn’t gotten the memo from the rest of Norway that English-style estates were out and cement-and-glass blocks were in. If Loki had been unblindfolded at the bottom of the stairs, he’d have guessed England.

“Wow,” he said. “It’s gorgeous.”

“Be sure to tell Frigga that.”

He did, first thing upon seeing her waiting at the open door, but he couldn’t tell if that added an extra PSI to her hug or if he’d have been on the brink of broken ribs if he’d said nothing about their oddly emotive house that’d gotten lost on its way to Oxford. A lot like Frigga herself, warm like Scandis weren’t unless four walls and Aquavit were involved.

“Everyone is so excited to meet you,” said Frigga in short warning of the people, more unknown than known, gathered in the den. One of her hands lifting commanded them all quiet. “Loki, I would like you to meet the family.”

Balder got up and hugged him in an obnoxious, teenage way. “I’ll be your escort. Cousin Hoder, this is Loki. Loki, Cousin Hoder…”

If Odin hadn’t numbed his hand, it’d have been after the dozenth handshake from the conveyor belt of blond because fortunately, Frigga’s enthusiasm for hugs was not a family tradition or wedding present from Odin’s side either. 

“It didn’t take Thor long to find himself a mate,” said Thor’s cousin Tyr, a man that definitely thought salads were for women and shaved with the shards that fell off the boulders he lugged around for exercise. “I told Uncle Odin it would happen.”

“Oh, Thor and I are friends.”

The room had conveniently fallen silent again for that to be heard more widely.

Thor had finally shown up too. “What’d I miss?”

“A joke,” said Hoder.

They were all snickering to themselves in consensus that yes, that’d been a joke.

“Loki can be funny when he tries,” Thor said. He decided that Loki was too comfortable where he was and had to disrupt that by shoving him over to steal the spot Loki’d been standing in. He failed to defend against Loki’s elbow in the side. The bigger man he was, he gave Loki’s shoulders his arm to take care of while he regaled his family in the tales of freshman fall semester.

Frigga bore a mug of hot cocoa with whipped cream on top each for them.

“You are the best,” Loki said. “You’ll be hearing that a lot from me.”

She lowered herself in the spot Balder made for her on the couch, immediately shaking her head at the words “keg stand” coming out of Thor’s mouth.

In terms of sheer timber and tone, Loki could zone out in Thor’s voice, did, noting what he was actually saying out of habit, but hot cocoa and Thor FM, the dozen strangers meant little to nothing.

“Hey.”

“Hm?” He turned toward Thor, and it seemed Thor was leaning toward him, but that couldn’t have been right, so Loki stayed still.

Thor’s tongue dragged over the tip of his nose.

There’d been whipped cream there.

And then continued talking like his cousin Tyr wasn’t exchanging a “what the fuck” look with his cousin Bragi’s wife Idunn.

Loki excused himself to the bathroom that Frigga offered to show him.

Family photographs stopped him in his venture to go find her in the kitchen where she said she’d be. Little, hip-high Thor’s smile threatened to devour his entire face, and Loki was going to bring up to Thor when he’d learned that smiling didn’t have to hurt.

“Thor was a beautiful child, wasn’t he?” Frigga had undoubtedly come to see if Loki had drowned in the toilet. “A strange little smile but look what’s it become.” She grabbed Loki’s elbow. “Let me show you up to Thor’s room.”

Loki could’ve stepped on Thor’s scent, the sheer density of it, for a closer look at the planets chalked onto the blackboard paint covering his ceiling. Thor — read: Frigga — had his flavors of balls ready for their moment in the sun perched on the shelves above Robert Heinlein hardcovers. His Lego USS Enterprise sat on top of a shelf next to his 1/16 scale Ford Thunderbird.

Their suitcases waited at the closet.

“You look well for having come out of the semester days ago,” said Frigga, the dream of the housewives reading _Architectural Digest_ perched on the ottoman at the end of the bed. 

“It didn’t go too badly.” As he opened the suitcase not full of snacks, he distilled for Frigga what Thor had gotten piece-by-piece, the professor with the vendetta, the rice cooker gone wrong, the rat incident, the Philosophy Department Flasher. Even in her infinite classiness, Frigga could appreciate a departure from the affairs with gardeners and coworkers that the women she had Saturday tea with.

“Hello,” said Thor.

“Guten tag.”

“Hello, darling.” She got up not to clear a space for Thor to sit but to stop him from interrupting Loki’s flow unpacking. She put a hand on his chin. “You must do something with this facial hair. I don’t know how you stand it, Loki.”

“Loki’s the one that asked me to shave my beard in the first place.”

“Only because I’ve never seen you without it. I had to get you before you reached the point of no return to see if it was the secret of your power. Unfortunately, it was not.”

Frigga realized her son was hopeless. “Balder, I’m sure, will gather you both for dinner.”

Before the door shut behind her, they called out, “Thank you,” and “See you later, Mom.”

“Going to tell me that my room is gorgeous?”

“Why would I lie?”

Thor grabbed the socks from Loki’s hands and swatted his ass with them (“Ow, dickhole.”) “You know you love my room. I have an Entie.” He helped unpack by scooping out all the snacks. “What’d you and Mom talk about?”

“Why? What do you think we talked about?”

“Whatever you’re going to tell me you talked about.”

“So, nothing?”

“Come on.” Thor closed his nightstand, snacks missing from his arms. “You know I’m not good at suspense.”

“Because you don’t bother at trying to get better at waiting.” The last clothes away, he tested out Thor’s bed. Firm. Loki approved even with the rebound it gave Loki when Thor dropped down onto it. “School. Her community projects. Nothing eventful.”

Thor tired of sitting up and committed fully to the bed. “I don’t believe you, but I’m not too bothered about it.”

They stared like they did when it was late at night, and they had class at 8:00 but neither of them wanted to go to sleep even if conversation had lapsed.

“You used to smile really weirdly, do you know that?”

“I went all-in. Every single muscle in my face pushing to the limit.” Thor’s fingertips drew on his knees. “Do you want a blow job?”

“Do you think that’s a good idea in a house this full?”

“Mom will have told everyone not to bother us. Dinner’s not for another hour. And we know it won’t be an hour.”

“Let me shower first?”

Thor was laughing that laugh, and Loki’s understanding of the room shifted by Thor’s lazy grip on his hips, dragging him up to the pillows. “Why do you even ask that question?”

Because Loki cared to make it pleasant for Thor and couldn’t conceive why this was even if it followed the other way around, but Loki was not Thor obviously.

#

21 Questions with a Side of Food

“Where are you from?”

“I was born nearby but grew up in Reykjavik.”

“We heard you’re a halfie?”

“My father is Icelandic, yes.”

“What’s he do?”

“He works in maritime shipping. My mom is a barrister.”

“How many siblings do you have?”

“Two, younger brothers, 15 and 12.”

“Any pets?”

“I had a pet dog that unfortunately outgrew the world.”

“You don’t play any sports, do you?”

“I used to fence. I’ve thought about picking it back up.”

_“_ What is your major?”

“Computer science.”

“Plans after college?”

“I’d like to work in software engineering.”

“When are you getting married then?”

“After I get engaged?” Loki replied, along with the justifiably sardonic smile that honestly, Tyr didn’t seem like the type to pick up.

“So, when are you going to ask, Cousin?” Tyr asked Thor.

Thor had been minding his business chewing. He continued to do that to buy himself time to formulate the most polite but clear “ _I_ _’m never going to ask him to marry me_ , _dumbass_.” Thor swallowed and said, “You should put this energy into finding a girlfriend, and then, you’ll be less worried about others’ lives.”

Polite had been Loki putting himself in Thor’s size “fuck you” shoes.

“Cousin Tyr’s just as curious as the rest of us, Thor,” Hermod said. “You brought him home. It’s a matter of time before you’re on one knee in front of him.”

The silence from Frigga and Odin was telling, a megaphone to _The Oxford English Dictionary_ on audiobook levels of telling.

“I know you thought I was joking,” said Loki, “but Thor and I are just friends.”

Why were they all exchanging looks? What was Loki missing?

“An unbonded alpha brings an unbonded omega home, but they’re just friends,” said Hoder. “Teenagers.”

“Will you all shut up?” Thor said. “You asked a question. He gave you an answer. I’m sure you have more about his favorite color and TV show.”

“What is your favorite movie?” Balder asked. “Thor already told me your favorite color is green, and TV show is _Star Trek_.”

“ _2001._ Thor said that you’re strangely obsessed with _The Royal Tenenbaums_ which is why he hates it.”

“’Strangely.’ It’s the best movie of all time, Thor.”

“That’s a lie, but you do you, B.” Thor stole a piece of broccoli off Loki’s plate, and the looks weren’t appreciated, alright?

Loki would’ve complained about the assumption fest if it wouldn’t have reminded Thor that they didn’t need to ration the hot water and deprived Loki of washing Thor’s back in a shower that had a soul that hadn’t died seeing hosts of naked college boys after 24-hour study sessions. Just teen Thor and the quadrillion sperm that should’ve birthed a blonde-haired soap baby.

“That is the grossest thing you’ve ever said,” Thor said. “ _You_.”

“I bet this shower has been holding a candle for you. Watch. Once time, I’ll shower alone, and all you’ll find left of me is red bubbles in the drain.”

“You don’t have to make up scary stories to tell me you don’t want to shower alone, Loki.” Thor stabbed Loki’s thigh with his hard-on moving in closer. “All you had to do was ask.”

He took a nibble of stubbly chin. “I’ll let you two have some alone time.”

“Loki,” Thor whined, peeking around the shower curtain, “you can’t leave me here. What if it tries to seduce me?”

“Don’t use the shampoo as lube. It burns your dickhole” had already come out of his mouth when Balder made himself known to Loki’s eyes.

Balder’s mouth went full fish as he held Thor’s football.

“Do you need something?”

Other than a _Men in Black_ neuralizer to remove the image of Loki in a towel leaving the bathroom Thor was still clearly showering in.

“I was going to ask Thor if he wanted to watch the CL match I recorded earlier.”

“Ajax-Bayern?”

“Yeah.”

“You know he will. If you come back in 20 minutes, we can watch it in here.”

Balder continued to not look away from Loki’s face. “Okay. Be back later.”

Loki made sure to lock the door behind Balder.

“Thor, why don’t you lock your door?”

Thor had said fuck a towel for his drowsing dick and was using the only one he’d bothered with on his hair. “Uh, I forgot.”

“Well, Balder is coming to watch Ajax-Bayern here in 20 minutes.”

“Did he see you like that?”

“So much for our friendship. I should gift him therapy for Christmas.”

“I bet he’s going to jerk his little dick to you.”

“As nice and conventionally attractive as Balder is, no one has his girlfriend with a small dick.”

On moist skin, even a gentle swat hurt (“Ow, asshole.”) “What, are you jealous of his girlfriend?”

“She may very well have to go if it comes down to it seeing as how he’s my best chance of getting into this family and making your mom mine. I can overlook him watching _Royal Tenenbaums_ once a week if I get your mom’s hot cocoa just once a year.”

“Luckily for you, you have me, so you don’t need to.”

“Right here, right now” Thor didn’t have conceptions of the after he cutely ran into a supermodel in eyeglasses in the library and smelled home on her. 

Balder knocked hard and even with Thor calling him a “fucking maniac” for it, couldn’t hide how relieved he was that they both had clothes on.

#

“Good morning,” said the half-filled dining table.

“Good morning,” Loki replied with Thor instead of, “Let me tell you about the amazing sex I just had.”

“No rest like one at home,” Hoder said, and Thor “cheers”ed his coffee as Loki chased down electrolytes and sanity in fruit slices to keep himself from floating into the candelabra.

His brain turned back to solid after half the plate Thor filled with bacon. He could actually look Thor in the face and embrace the vacancy where his usual dread was MIA as room for the excitement of skiing.

“If you don’t know how to do it,” said Hermod, “no need to worry. We’ll help you.”

In his gunmetal gray ushanka, Thor shared in how great his day was shaping up — first sex, now he got to drive his truck — with Balder and his girlfriend and winter-gear-model-in-waiting Nanna in their waiting party because Thor’s cousin Vidar needed to find his gloves.

“Thank you for the offer,” Loki said.

“You’re family now.” The shoulder pat was anticipated. “We look out for one another.”

On that topic, Býleistr had landed in Reykjavik and “caught some redhead lass’ digs” in the airport.

“He sounds so gross,” Nanna said, too used to collecting blackmail out the corner of her eye like girls like her in their _Lord of the Flies with Make-up_ circles operated to not eavesdrop. “Like so many guys I know.”

“He is, but girls like it.”

“I don’t like the way you’re talking about me,” said Thor.

“We’re talking about some guy Loki’s texting.” If Loki ever needed a secret kept, it sure wouldn’t be Nanna who did it.

The judgment was loving this silence.

“My brother.”

“Tell him I said, ‘hi,’” said Thor.

“ _Thor says hi_.”

Býleistr didn’t reply of course.

As ashamed as Býleistr thought Loki was making him, he’d have been proud at how Loki maintained the guise of the aloofness that was inexperience during the prep for getting up to the summit. The mirthful looks being exchanged at him staying quiet in the resort lobby alone, Loki channeled the urge to laugh into Boa constricting Thor’s arm while Thor told Balder some MMA gossip.

Thor didn’t finish till they were a neck break from the ground on the ski lift. “I swear you told me you’ve been skiing before.”

“I have.”

“Then, you’ll be fine. Just be careful. You know how to stay safe.” Make no mistake. That was Thor sparing himself the embarrassment of Loki falling face-first into a snow pile, not Thor caring that Loki could’ve Schumachered himself.

Thor saw his little bro Balder offering a supporting hand to his guest’s elbow, so Thor decided that he’d do that but around Loki’s waist.

“This is a normal difficulty slope,” Hermod was telling the group but really, Loki and Nanna. “Don’t push yourself too hard to keep up.”

Thor’s hand twitched into Loki’s kidney echoing that.

“Is it okay if I go ahead of you?” Loki asked.

“Yeah. That would probably be better.”

Before Nanna could go, Loki showed all of these part-time snow-babies what living, breathing, and bleeding snow gifted you with. The snow rejoiced to have someone that understood it for the multitalented goodness it was, guiding Loki along through air that didn’t chip off another day of his life one breath at a time or carry yelling in an accent like a brick wrapped in a dirty diaper.

He had peace and quiet meeting him at the last blue flag.

For a moment.

Thor trudged through his snow cloud, the champion of the sun.

“That was fun, right?”

It was more of an “eep” that his body tried and failed to warn Thor away with when he got a shoulder transplanted into his diaphragm and the world flipped upside down.

“We’re going to the expert slope.”

“Sounds good.” He strained his neck up to wave at the rest of them still taking their sweet time down the slope.

Thor kept up, but he must’ve seen it on the horizon that this next trick jump calling Loki’s name was going to expose him as a snow tourist and before Loki could heed the call, Thor wrapped his hand around his arm and tugged him toward the lodge. Loki helped poor Thor get his precious warmth back by sucking all the cold from him on his lap.

Because the others did not have such an important job, they could afford to be early to their meeting time at the truck.

“Get lost?” Hoder asked.

“Almost,” Loki replied.

As appealing as resuming that position was upstairs in Thor’s room — like that would’ve lasted if they were alone — compulsory family bonding demanded them in the den to cram into an armchair meant for one Thor-sized person — the arm of said chair was a fine enough seat fortunately — and drink Frigga’s hot cocoa as consolation. A fair consolation if you asked Loki.

The only consolation when Thor stole his support away, slipping Loki into the chair, to greet his OGs — the true brothers from another mother, Fandral the boy bander and Volstagg the eating enthusiast.

Loki stood up to shake their hands, introduced by Thor as simply Loki while they got “you’ve heard about Fandral and Volstagg.” Fandral and Volstagg excused Thor from big family bonding to go bond with his bros, but Loki was ditched to the seamless flow of people that weren’t attached by blood but by genuine love which didn’t include him. He took his — and the ones that Tyr and Hoder held out — empty mugs to the kitchen and followed the poised laughter to Frigga and Fulla in an actual drawing room.

“Loki, please, join us,” said Frigga, gesturing to the empty loveseat.

His mother’s friends used to summon him to rooms to stroke his hair and joke — or what Loki thought was a joke but given the divorce clearly wasn’t — but they’d not-joke about how Laufey’s genes were his only good contribution to the world, but that’d petered out when Mother had started spending the weekends home and the weekdays away, no space for this light, harmless talking for Loki to sit in on with that gigantic elephant in the house.

Frigga wasn’t naïve or air-headed or had a perfect life either. She just had this wholly positive regard for the hassles that’d have annihilated Loki’s mood for months. It was how she so heard the bitterness in Loki describing Fandral and Volstagg as Thor’s “super duperest best friends,” but instead of responding how everyone would’ve, she patted his hand with hers kept soft by La Mer and angel blood and said, “They hold a very different place in his heart than you do.”

“More,” she didn’t say because she didn’t need to.

Thor was wandering the halls and stopped for Loki. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“I was just talking to your mom and aunt.”

“Well, we’re going out for dinner, the four of us, so come on.”

“Really?”

“Mom will save you a plate. I’m sure. Let’s go.”

Fourth wheeling with Thor’s kindergarten pals differed from doing it back in Boston by language only because Thor was exactly as bro-y and smiley and back-pat-y with Volstagg and Fandral if not more. Oh, and the fact they were not terrified of Thor like Thor’s friends back in Boston were. That was a fairly major difference actually, Volstagg daring to give Thor’s majestic hair a noogie that only made Loki look away to hide the heat that matched a blush in face because he’d seen that hair earlier and Fandral referring to Thor as “our little prince.” Loki need not keep ahold of Thor’s ankle to keep him tethered to earth so strongly because Fandral and Volstagg had him around the waist and shoulders.

They bothered to ask Loki questions not ripped from an interview handout like how he’d adjusted to Thor waking up at 4:00 am and why collar bone length was his chosen hair length. They were looking for something, what, Loki couldn’t tell yet — likely what to tell Thor why he shouldn’t bring Loki back for any visits — but they weren’t talking to him to later be able to tell Thor, “But we tried. You saw.”

Neither of them was in love with Loki, but Loki wasn’t in love with them either, so it was fine.

“They were expected,” Loki told Thor, Fandral and Volstagg gone in Fandral’s car and leaving the two of them to enjoy this brief stillness in the foyer.

“I’m going to take that a nice way.”

“You should.”

“Mom, we’re home” Thor trembled the chandelier with. Despite Loki’s “really?” look, Thor didn’t have the shame to stick around to see if it’d detach from the ceiling and Loki would’ve been damned if he was found at the scene of the crime.

“How was your date?” asked Bragi in his snowflake PJ pants, giddy with the sex that awaited him back in his room.

“Better than any you’ve been on,” Thor replied.

Loki whispered behind his hand to Bragi, “Don’t forget where the clitoris is.”

Bragi was watching when Loki made an upside-down victory sign and pointed to the apex before shutting Thor’s bedroom door.

#

Pools in Norway were ice skating rinks a good chunk of the year, and the ice skates down in the shed told how resigned Thor’s family was to that fate.

Extremely aggressively.

“You know how I feel about fucking Ice Fight, Thor,” said Loki to the skates Thor tried handing him.

The term “Ice Fight” was sufficient in redirecting those skates back to the shelf.

“Fine, then. Don’t play.”

“Don’t get hurt.” He played with the ends of Thor’s gray, wool scarf. “We still have positions we haven’t tried.”

“Haven’t tried what?” asked Tyr.

“Convincing Thor that playing ice hockey without a helmet is a great idea.”

Tyr sneered and shoulder-checked Thor, a sample of what was to come, though that barely moved Thor. “They always worry, don’t they?”

Loki rolled his eyes and found himself, his Opsec book, and the hot thermos of cocoa Frigga had gifted him a spot on the deck overlooking the seasonal ice rink and the “Come to Norway” brochure prospects skating onto it.

When Thor’s gray ushanka tilted away, Loki waved jauntily at Thor.

Thor rudely didn’t wave back.

Why wouldn’t Thor have come from an insanely competitive family given how competitive he was?

Loki hadn’t gotten a chapter in when the first shoving started and the shouts, some of which Loki caught including, “Try to take me out, you piss-drinker?” and “Father dicker!” Thor didn’t care for all the strategy or the feinting, no. Thor just wanted to score, and if Balder and Hermod were in Thor’s way, then Thor was barging past them if it was the last thing he did. As realistic as that seemed from the sound of the impacts — way to make Loki lose his place — Thor was alive and ferocious and had the Viking ancestors buried deep under their feet roaring.

Loki quietly smiled to himself and congratulated Thor for “not dying along with winning.”

“You have that look on your face.”

“What look?”

“We’ll be back down for lunch,” Thor told the others. “Going to go watch some _Star Trek_.”

Loki said the same to Frigga when she asked where they were off to when they passed her.

And what look?

The “I have no mouth, only your fuckhole” look. 

#

Hoder’s inability to keep his eggnog in his cup and not on Loki sent Loki up for a change of clothes.

He’d insisted that Thor stay — it would’ve been too obvious — but Thor had the delay of gratification abilities of a five-year-old. Loki could linger around in his boxers for a few minutes, and Thor would be up to “checkup” on Loki.

Would you have it? The door opened.

The “Thor” died a thousand deaths when it was not Thor, definitely not Thor, but Odin staring at him in his skivvies.

“Oh, Loki, I didn’t know you were undressed,” said not Thor as the door slipped to a place where Loki could no longer be seen, not that it would’ve mattered with Loki grabbing the sweatshirt Thor’d left on the ottoman and holding it over himself. “I’d seen you come up and intended to speak with you.”

“Mhm.”

“I suppose that could wait.” Yet there Odin was just hidden behind the door. “It’ll be interesting to see your hips spread to accommodate your first child. I’m sure they’ll manage it.”

When the door shut, Loki asked himself, “What the fuck?”

It was Thor when the door opened this time. His sweatshirt being hugged wasn’t what he expected. “Uh?”

“Someone walked in.”

“Oh.” Thor was ready to move on, but then asked, “Who?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Mom? That’s funny. She’s probably telling Aunt Fulla about it.”

“That’s comforting.”

“Your body is amazing.” Thor breathed goosebumps down his neck. “You should let me show you.”

“Should I?”

“Absolutely.” Thor squeezed the feeling out of Loki’s ass. “How about—?”

What was opening? The door.

Who was it? Idunn.

“Oh my god.”

It was no longer Idunn.

“Can’t they knock?” Thor asked.

“Can’t you lock the door?”

“That was all on you that Mom walked in. I wasn’t here.”

“Hey,” Idunn was shouting outside, “we’re all about to leave for the Christmas market in an hour.”

“Thanks,” Thor said.

“The look on her face, Thor.” He tried to stifle the laugh. He tried. “Another person to get therapy for.”

“She’ll tell Bragi, but Bragi’s her slave, so he won’t tell anyone.”

Loki gave Thor his sweatshirt to mind while he got dressed to go feel out how Idunn felt about what she thought she’d walked in on.

Idunn felt unduly smug, but that strain of smug that had to stew in its own fumes for a while, with a discharge here and there, aka telling Bragi after she’d successfully located her clit for the second night in a row thanks to Loki, and she’d not have the satisfaction of having evidence for their long-lost hopes overshadowed by dancing Father Christmases and hot eggnog.

A beret with white cotton fringe wanted to try itself on Thor’s head, and Loki gave it some assistance.

As one did when unexpected objects set on your head, Thor reached up to keep it from falling when he turned toward Loki. The French wept. He outdid them, past, present, and future, and wasn’t trying. “I know I look hot.”

Jealous of Thor’s hat, another must’ve implored Thor to grab what Loki’s periphery identified as a matching beret and put it on Loki’s head.

“You don’t look too bad either.”

“Oh, thank you for your kind words.”

Thor handed over the Euros for them. 

Odin’s face flashed between the heads of the schoolgirls that’d been collecting pictures of Thor at the scarf stall across.

“Your father doesn’t believe that we’re not together,” Loki told Thor.

Thor’s appalled reaction was hidden by his attention span giving up the ghost on this stall. “Why do you think that?”

“He said something that insinuated that we’d be having kids.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“I wish he didn’t. Trust me.”

“I bet he was joking,” said Thor, in a futile attempt at diverting this conversation to less discomfiting territory. “Father does know how to joke, believe it or not.”

“It was a very strange joke to make then. The kind of joke I would make.”

Thor didn’t hide his disinterest in an explanation. “Father has always had a terrible sense of humor.”

His hand was on its own cuffing Thor, but it did have the support of the rest of him. “Dick.”

#

“No penises” was not a phrase that Loki’d considered out of Frigga’s mouth yet there it was.

There was a chorus of denials that they’d never. Frigga’s facial expression said that they had. 

“I only did balls once,” Thor murmured. “Tyr technically drew the dick.”

Frigga completed the Christmas Cookie Workshop with the final ingredient: the icing. “Enjoy.”

Loki grabbed Commercial Christmas green as Balder beat Thor to light blue (“Getting slow in your old age, man.” “We’ll see how slow I am in _FIFA_ later.”) and Thor elected for white.

“Draw trees, and I’ll make snow,” said Thor, nonchalantly, not meaning to direct with a firm hand but subconsciously falling into it because as far as Thor was concerned, it was simply a good plan.

Loki would’ve come up with it too. They made two similar cookies, “fraternal twins” Loki called them, and they’d make two of each from then on out. Insurance. A 50% chance they’d get to try their cookie and they’d avoid the disapproval from Frigga they weren’t acting the spirit of the holiday. “We’re perfecting the designs,” Loki told Hoder when he asked. “Two trials are all the trials you need.”

Tyr couldn’t not explain why that was incorrect, what a joke-detector he was. In all the years of dealing with Tyr’s wonderful sense of humor — as bad as Odin’s could be, which it couldn’t be that bad if Thor was correct in comparing it to Loki’s, which he couldn’t have been, Odin’s wasn’t Tyr’s — Thor had cultivated a sadistic love of how Tyr’s impassioned ranting. He didn’t hide that toothy grin as Tyr quintupled down.

Thor’s hand did not retreat away from the cookie he was passing down and the tip of Loki’s icing bag.

A red blossom. Before Thor could’ve wiped it on his jeans like an arsehole, Loki picked up the dead weight of Thor’s arm and didn’t let the icing go to waste, harming no utensils in the process either.

Strawberry with a hint of salt.

“Wait, I forgot what I was going to say,” said Thor.

Loki’s Santa hat became a Santa sack because of Thor’s nudge. “What?”

“You ruined my train of thought.”

“I derailed your, what, three cars?”

“Freight train. I was doing some heavy-duty thinking.”

“You can do that not for a grade?”

Thor’s eyes betrayed him, but what did it matter that Loki anticipated Thor attacking him with icing when Thor was… Thor and could back him against the counter and ice him a necklace and some highlights on his cheek in yellow of all colors. Yellow. The outrage of how terrible that had to have looked earned Thor that squirt of red in his hair.

“Hey.” Balder yanked the red from Loki’s hand and pried yellow from Thor’s. “Stop wasting icing.”

“I didn’t start it,” Loki said.

“What? You got me on the hand.”

“On accident.”

“Didn’t look like an accident.”

“You weren’t even paying attention. Oh, like why I squirted you on the hand in the first place.”

“Shut up.” Thor descended on the icing on Loki’s neck, licking a stripe beyond the icing from clavicle to jaw.

He tucked his chin in and pushed at Thor’s face. “Stop it. That tickles.”

They were not alone. Right.

Thor read that off Loki’s face. He felt the stickiness in his hair. “I should go wash this out before I become Grandpa Bor.”

“He was a great man,” Tyr said. “You wish you could be him.”

As Loki had more tact than Thor, he did not follow Thor but stayed perfectly put and ignored the awkward curiosity none of them wanted to risk incurring Frigga’s wrath to satiate.

“If Thor’s not finished, do you think I could use your bathroom?” Loki made sure to ask Balder, freeing himself from the room and covering his retreating ass at once.

“Uh. Sure.”

With Balder’s blessing, Loki left them to stop walking on eggshells. It was reflex to pause to hear the conversation restart without him.

“He’s playing with Thor’s head,” said Tyr.

“Oh, but Thor has him wrapped around his finger,” Hoder replied. “Loki is setting himself up for quite the heartbreak.”

“We’ll see come the Spring.”

They plodded on to what Christmas movie they were watching tonight, and Loki didn’t waste time checking if Thor was done and simply used Balder’s shower. Imagine Loki’s astonishment at the new, female voice waiting behind Thor’s ajar bedroom door.

The picture on Thor’s desk back at their dorm had introduced Loki to “definitely not my girlfriend, fuck no” Brunnhilde.

Why wouldn’t she be as stunning in person leant against the post of Thor’s bed?

Thor had hastily dressed, said the wet spots darkening his gray NASA tee shirt and the noodles his hair had become. He looked at Loki and smiled, standing from the nightstand he’d been using as a chair to gesture toward Loki, introducing him.

“Wow.” Brunnhilde placed her tongue in her cheek, and her head was tilting in opposition to the once over she was attempting. She succeeded in it. “It’s nice to meet you Loki Dokie.”

That warmth in Loki’s cheeks would come with pink for Brunnhilde to aw and say, “Oh, he’s a blusher,” at.

In an attempt to salvage his dignity and lessen the mocking Thor would give him later, Loki said, “I didn’t know you were getting in tonight.”

“Me neither. But the parents decided why not go see some little show in Tromso, and I’ve never been much for theater, so I went why not stop in and see how this one’s faring. I’d say very well myself.”

“Thor and I are just friends” ran out of Loki’s mouth preemptively.

Thor didn’t appreciate how poor of an impression Loki was giving Brunnhilde about Thor’s choices in friends at college.

Brunnhilde nodded with surprised eyebrows. “Are you? I’ll keep that in mind.”

Thor got up. “You said they were about to watch _Die Hard_ , and I love that movie—”

“I love that movie,” Brunnhilde said.

“—so let’s go.” To Loki, with disgusted eyes, he said, “You can stay up here if you want. Your choice.”

The nudge to do just that was more of a hip check by Thor.

“Okay. Um, I’ll see you in the morning, Brunnhilde. It was nice to finally meet you.”

“Pleasures all mine.”

Thor slammed the door behind him.

Loki allowed the microscopic shockwave to sit him down on the bed.

He hadn’t even had a cookie for his suffering.

#

Brunnhilde could snowboard, of course, and that took care of Thor’s need of a partner on the expert range. Sans Nanna, Balder had come up and the gentle soul he was, skied into the role of keeping an eye out for any errant valleys that’d swallow Loki up only asking in return that Loki did the same.

Loki’d received an upgrade for the small cost of some minor humiliation. Balder had no fear of faceplanting after jumps, and the snow gifted him smooth passage for his bravery. When Balder’s skin pinked, not out of his own ridiculousness but his Norwegian blood running out of its cold resistance, he rubbed his hands together but did not glimpse in the direction of the nearest lodge. For that, Loki invited Balder in for a huddle that Balder let out a relieved cloud at and rushed over to Loki.

Balder was mild like detergent, not distinctly unpleasant but his shielding against the less forgiving lashes of the wind was welcome. He didn’t provide the shelter that Thor did, had nothing up on Loki, only the sideways directions, but even then, if Thor had been behind Balder, Balder would’ve been to Thor what Loki had to be to him.

Yet with that as an older brother, Balder was a sunflower growing from the ice. Frigga truly did have talent.

There was a punch to Loki’s shoulder, and snow breaking off into fine mist around him.

Another snowball smacked Balder in the shoulder.

“Ow,” said Balder. Him “ow”ing when Loki didn’t even have that much muscle?

Following the snowballs trajectory landed on Brunnhilde’s white Papakha and Brunnhilde throwing another at them.

Thor was making no motion to stop her.

Loki backed away from Balder, who foolishly took the hit and yelled, “What the hell?” Loki assembled a hard mass of snow and covertly passed it to Balder. “Here.”

Balder had a throwing arm that would be expected from an Odinson.

His snowball exploded on Brunnhilde’s now-shield, once-snowboard.

Balder was not satisfied by that and took off toward them.

Loki supposed he should’ve followed.

“—is wrong with you?” Balder was asking.

“They weren’t meant to hit you,” Brunnhilde said.

“What did I do?” Loki asked. “It’s polite to give someone a warning before starting a snowball fight.”

“Yeah,” said Balder. “We were trying to get warm and throwing snowballs doesn’t help.”

Thor was quietly glaring inside his scarf. God, a look truly could instantly give you a hard-on.

“Getting warm,” Brunnhilde said. “Haven’t heard that one before.”

Balder only paused to let the implication settle. “Loki’s Thor’s.”

If one of those valleys wanted to spontaneously take Loki under, now would’ve been a splendid time.

“I’m my own person, thank you,” Loki said.

“I also have a girlfriend who I love very much. Why does everyone have to make everything into something? Can’t I stop my balls from freezing off in peace?”

“Evidently no. I’m going to get cocoa.”

Brunnhilde was asking about a red jump up the hill, and she wasn’t asking Thor because he was following Loki.

Loki wasn’t willing to entertain Thor until he’d had a sip, a facsimile compared to Frigga’s but it tasted like chocolate, and for now, that satisfied him. “I get that I am not your usual type of friend,” he told Thor, “and that you’re disappointed I didn’t try harder to seem normal, but I tried, alright?”

Thor also propped himself on the window ledge. “I don’t want you to not be yourself.”

“No, you want me to be a more sanitized version of myself. I understand.”

“You clearly don’t. Don’t pretend for me. Don’t pretend for anyone.”

“Don’t pretend,” Loki filled in the blanks, “just make yourself be that way.”

Thor stole the hot cocoa from his hands and handed it off to a table. 

Thor’s lips brought cold, a first, and the prickles of Thor’s regrowing stubble. He would’ve had Loki falling if Loki didn’t right himself using the sides of Thor’s face, which Thor caught on to after the fact, grabbing onto Loki’s sides for a chill that didn’t register coming from those hands that filled in the freefall between Loki’s last rib and the tip of his hip bone. Loki warmed Thor’s lips up and fast-tracked some heat to Thor’s tongue through his own, earning a tongue massage from Thor’s hum when Loki’s fingers slid back to that spot where his hairline bordered his ear that was one of Thor’s many “on” buttons.

“No labels then, eh?”

They moved apart to make room for the surprise of Brunnhilde’s appearance.

She was insufferably smug. “Baldy went to use the loo. Not that he needs to be told something he clearly already knows.”

Loki had no more explanations owed to Brunnhilde. He tossed his scarf back into place and retrieved his cocoa and migrated away from the explaining that Thor would feel obligated to do to his friend.

Brunnhilde did not care enough to share her non-discovery on the recap of the trip with those that weren’t Bragi, who’d already been filled in with the nothing Idunn had seen. Before Loki could climb over her out of the car that’d vacated of everyone but them, she leaned in and whispered with tinges of alcohol that Loki couldn’t recall having seen her drink, “Do me a solid and make sure you fuck him. He’s in a right mood, and I don’t want my last day to be all ruined by that. Will do you some wonders too.”

No, Loki was not heeding Brunnhilde’s advice when he got his pants under his ass and perked up on the edge of Thor’s bed for lots of mutual moaning muffled by Thor’s hand and Loki’s shoulder. It was a simple aligning of the stars.

#

“Aunt Rindr is here,” Hermod poked his head in — door, of course, un-knocked — to tell them.

Their episode of _Star Trek_ paused.

“Rindr,” Loki said, following Thor, “this is the…”

One with the micro-human possessed by the demon of cute.

Vale with his tiny, chubby hands, looked up at Thor with his massive blue eyes as Rindr explained that yes, this large man was his cousin. That translated to permission to ask, “Up?”

“Pick him up,” Loki demanded as Thor reached down to those chubby arms. “Pick him up.” 

While Vale did not yet have the… depth to appreciate Loki, staring at him blankly when he waved or going rigid and kicking out when Thor tried to hand Loki over to him, Loki could appreciate the tininess of Vale.

“I want a baby,” Loki said as Vale batted his clumpy brass eyelashes against sleep, now leaning on Balder’s shoulder. “Thor, get me a baby for Christmas.”

Thor was resting his chin against Balder’s back and poked Vale’s cheek. “Oh, no. B, I might have to start borrowing condoms from you.”

If Balder hadn’t put the pieces together already and they weren’t alone in this parlor, the three and a quarter of them, Loki would’ve kicked Thor.

“Like those little things could fit me,” Thor couldn’t resist saying, snickering. He did get a kick for that.

“Don’t be rude. Balder, I’m sure you know your size is fine.”

“Could we stop talking about you-know-what around a one-year-old?” Balder asked. “It feels weird.”

“Aw, B’s not getting any, so he’s upset. Bet if you stop asking her to call her ‘mommy,’ Nanna will go farther than holding hands with you.”

That was a dumb joke. That didn’t stop Loki from having to hold in a laugh.

“Loki, hold him,” said Balder.

Vale was thrust into Loki’s arms before either of them could react.

Balder lunged at Thor which brought all 2000 steel kilos of them onto a couch that might’ve been from Louis XIV’s reign, but to the couch’s credit, it did not topple over.

Vale started kicking Loki in the stomach as Thor sMomed Balder with a pillow.

As gripping as this fight was, Loki’s arms did not have it in them to hold Vale away from Loki’s guts and other assorted important organs for the duration of it. Vale was handed off to his Mom Rindr in the middle of her conversation with her brother Odin that had been greatly benefitting from not having a baby around as told by the instant break of her laughter and the line of begrudging acceptance her mouth assumed.

“Not a fan of babies?” Odin asked.

“No, he’s just not a fan of me.”

“You must not take it personally,” Odin was saying, keeping Loki. “He is at an age where children fear the world except for familiar faces. You will see it with my grandchildren—”

Loki cut him off to “go desperately use the bathroom.”

Back in the parlor, Balder was holding a bloody tissue to his lip as Frigga pet his hair, and Thor was brooding like a chastised child with his arms crossed, which made it easy to miss the ice pack on his elbow.

“What happened here?” Loki innocently asked. 

“Foolishness,” Frigga said. “Practically men and wrestling like boys.”

“He’s milking this so hard,” Thor whispered to Loki as Loki took over the duties of holding the ice pack to Thor’s elbow partly for the infusion of cold needed in the oven-ready temperatures they kept it in here. “Accidentally elbowed the couch. Thing is made out of a metal.”

“What were you fighting over? Do I want to know?” Frigga asked.

“Thor thinks because I’m not constantly inside of Nanna like he is Loki, I’m a virgin.”

“Balder.” Frigga’s hand switched from petting to grabbing Balder’s head. “Don’t be crass. I raised you better than that. Apologize to Loki.”

Balder seethed. “Sorry.”

Thor was grinning.

“Now, there will be no more fighting. I have the both of you for two more weeks. I want them peaceful.”

“It was just fun, Mom,” Thor said. “It’s not my fault Balder has tissue paper skin. Who knew a pillow would do that?”

“No.” Frigga had her hand up. “I don’t want to hear it. We have a baby in the house now and will have plenty more tomorrow. You’ll all be on your best behavior. Loki, I have a twist I’ve put on the cocoa I’d like for you to try out.”

“Bye, losers,” Loki mouthed with a Vulcan salute.

Frigga taught Loki that caramel in hot cocoa was the key to world peace.

#

As tall, sometimes adults with working hands, Loki and Thor were tasked with lifeguarding the graveyard of snow angels and rescuing scoliotic snowmen from early deaths over the astoundingly hard heads of the micro humans belonging to Frigga’s garden club.

“Explain the ‘Mommy’ joke to me.”

Thor was ignoring the whining of the four-and-a-half-year-old that didn’t grasp that a snowman’s rock buttons were supposed to be on the same side of their face to diligently give the snow toddler a coat. “Um.” Finished, Thor returned the world to its natural order where he was taller by the second. “Once, I was asking what he did with one of his old girlfriends and asked if he called her Mommy. He turned crimson, so you know I have to bring it up when I can.”

As an older brother, oh, did Loki know.

Stubby arms flailing at a distance from the tree-line considered daring for below-10s asked for help. Was it a long trek? No, but the prospect of slogging through all the snow appealed to Loki far less than placing Thor in a full Nelson and using his choke as leverage to secure his legs around Thor’s waist.

“Really?” asked Thor, sounding very pleased.

“It’s not like your back was up to anything. And if it wasn’t me, it’d be one of these mysteriously sticky monsters.”

“Yes, thank you for your great service.”

“It’s nothing.”

Two swollen snow testicles waited for them.

Loki slid himself down.

“Wow, you did this yourself?” Thor asked the four of them who were at an age where they could talk about fucking Loki’s Mom on _Minecraft_ in a falsetto but not understand abstract reasoning, and they lavished in the praise from the man they wanted to be when they grew up, Creeper pixelated green gloves on their hips bragging like it hadn’t required every ounce of their strength. But Thor had been them just with a more manic smile. He glanced at Loki, looking for shared nostalgia that Loki just could not relate to. “Well, let’s get this snow man put together.”

Loki motioned to crouch down to grab the other side, but Thor said, “No, I’ve got it.”

“You’ve got it?” 

“Yeah.” Thor assumed the squat that had his jeans on the edge of their seams, wondering if this was their last day together, and when Thor stood, the snow boulder went too, happy to be placed on top of the other boulder to form that snow man one head from reaching Loki’s chin.

The kids clapped. Loki refrained. Like Thor needed Loki’s applause to soak it all in.

Like he’d needed his help when he could have all the credit and all the adoration. Typical.

“Hey, can you come help us with our snowman’s face?” asked the cherub tugging on Loki’s sleeve.

Loki’d cultivated a reputation of the meaningful, small details. Thor could have the lifting when Loki could have the squeals when he showed them how to properly affix the carrot into the snowman’s face for maximum cuteness and minimal terror.

Thor hadn’t noticed Loki’s absence because his fan club was superficially filling in Loki’s space being impressed that Thor was, from the looks of it, building snow friends for their snow man. He couldn’t get enough of this low-effort and limitless resource of admiration from freaking kids.

Loki turned to the kid old enough to walk in a straight line and got down to their level to place some snow into their mittens and ask them to deliver that to Thor.

How about that for some admiration from a kid.

Thor was a gentle giant who wouldn’t pass up one kid to add to his growing army of admirers, so he knelt down to hear her and give her his full attention.

That put him in a prime position for the face of snow she flicked at him.

She went running away.

Loki’s fellow snow connoisseurs laughed right along with him.

He high-fived his little friend and held her, a bag of flour, up to place the hat on the snowman.

One of Thor’s devotees came running in and stopped short of Loki. “We are declaring war.”

“You’re declaring war?”

“Yes. All lands east of that snowman,” said this kid, gesturing toward the snowman roughly in the middle of the yard that had mismatched stick arms and as Loki explained, that was okay, and did not make him less of a snowman, “are ours. West is yours.”

“And how do you suppose this war will be won?”

“When the last man has fallen!” The kid ran back, screaming.

“What is war?” asked the five-ish year old.

To spare them an extensive history lesson, Loki explained that war was them getting as many snowballs as they could and not being afraid to hide to throw those snowballs at people’s backs and if they could, shove those snowballs down people’s clothes. “But it’ll be cold!” “Which is the point.” That accidental snow fort from the abandoned igloo — it was a universal constant, realizing that igloos were not as easy as putting up four walls of snow — was their decoy shield because unlike Thor’s Army with their ridiculous ballasts they were pushing into a line, they weren’t trying to be visible.

“Come eat!” Fulla shouted which put an end to strategy because children did not understand that in war, friends became enemies, not people you saved seats for and shared your chocolate cookies with.

Thor ate with the intermixed factions, but Loki leaned against a wall with Hoder where Thor eyeing him was very visible, not that Thor cared.

“What’s going on?” asked Hermod, having come in and noticed.

“They’re going to war,” Hoder replied.

“Oh. Okay.” Hermod patted Loki on the shoulder and wandered over to Thor. He returned after their chat to drop off the message, “Thor says that you’re going to lose. I meant to ask if you were interested in coming along with us to Christmas carol later. Me, Vidar, Aunt Frigga—”

Giving Thor the evil-eye, Loki replied, “I’ll think about it.”

At the moment, Loki had children to explain that rules were for losers and guilty winners, of which they were neither. Besides the one to not significantly hurt one another because then, they’d get in trouble and there would be crying.

Green hat boy met Thor’s representative at the border, and after the countdown that Green hat boy did them proud in launching his snowball before, it was on.

As Thor’s army rushed them, they scattered, doing Loki proud as they ducked behind snowmen and dug themselves under snow drifts. Loki stood arms spread, prepared for Thor who was wasting no time looking for anyone else but him.

A mistake he realized when the snowballs rained down upon him.

The shock of the cold put Thor in the wrong direction, and when the snowballs had run out, Loki was long gone camping behind a snowman.

One of Thor’s chanced into the correct spot to see Loki, and the girl opened her mouth to shout for back-up, but Loki had her gently tackled in the snow with a nice helping of it down her collar. She had to suck in the air necessary to scream her discomfort, enough time for Loki to do a crouched jog to the a snow drift that’d been abandoned by the kid not far away that was on his knees surrendering to two of Thor’s, pleading for no snow in his shirt.

It was too pathetic for Loki to not intervene with snowballs that exploded that wonderful cold on their cheeks and foreheads and made them retreat to make some snowballs of their own. The twerps just had to signal back in Loki’s direction when they passed Thor.

Thor’s grin might’ve been whiter than the snow.

Loki ran, and Thor had the advantage of, well, being Thor, a plus-100 xP to “Speed.” So, as one did in desperate times, Loki took the desperate measure of violating Frigga’s rule that hadn’t explicitly applied to Loki and Thor, but they’d been grandfathered into by hearing it: “Don’t go past the tree line.” 

The snow had covered up all the roots and was deep enough to retain Loki’s footsteps for Thor to follow. Loki paused to stamp them out, wove some paths around trees close together, and because Loki did not have the advantage of being Thor, his breath ran out, stranding him behind a tree that a glance back put as being not visible from the tree line but not as deep as he’d have liked.

He covered his mouth with his glove.

“Loki,” said Thor, either a kilometer away or on the other side of the tree; who knew with the reverb. “If you come out, I’ll be merciful.”

Loki was five like those kids out there and absolutely bought that.

He gathered up a tiny snowball and threw that blindly behind the tree as he switched to the one beside it.

Thor passed behind Loki’s last tree, looking in that exact spot Loki had been. Loki could’ve snuck off and bought himself him time, sure, but Thor’s collar was there unguarded, and Loki had all of this snow.

Loki held his breath and scooped up as much snow as his arm could cradle.

Thor moved on to continue his search, and Loki tiptoed behind him.

Thor’s head was turning, Loki’s window was closing, and Thor’s jacket was shifting, exposing his belt loop.

Loki grabbed onto it and pulled back, pulling Thor’s jeans back away from his body, and the snow, it flowed into the space Loki had made for it.

Thor caught his wrist, which dislodged Loki’s finger. His hand going back to secure his jeans was a grave mistake, the gravest as told by his eyes going slack and mouth opening in that finger-up-his-ass “oh.”

Loki couldn’t not laugh. “Guess you weren’t—”

The tree joined Thor in taking all the air out of his lungs.

He caught some to tell Thor that it’d be better for them all if he just ceded defeat because Loki could go all day long. He loved the snow. The snow, he was born in it, molded by it. Thor adopted it. And where did Thor think he was putting that snow. He couldn’t — didn’t because Loki’s legs drew together and up, protecting his waistband.

“Scared of the snow, Lo?”

“No.”

Of the probable concussion and fractures of smacking into it, now, yes.

The snow touched him gently, but it was powdering him, the handfuls Thor was dumping on him. He responded in kind, but Thor was above and had gravity on his side also throwing snow at Loki that Loki threw up at Thor.

White dust was collecting in Thor’s eyelashes. What a pretty Disney prince he made.

“Yield.”

“No.”

Snow had reached critical mass on his jeans, and they were letting some through to melt, which was simply unacceptable because cold wetness, it would seep into his bones. 

It’d already seeping into Thor’s, how stiffly he was holding Loki down. What’s Thor cock would look like in the extreme cold.

Loki ground his shin up into Thor’s cock area, and Thor hissed through his teeth. When he tried it again, Thor’s thighs clamped down on his leg. That worked for Loki since it gave him time to compare and contrast Flaccid Thor now with Flaccid Thor earlier when Loki’d just sat down on his lap when all the spawn had taken the seats in the living room.

Softer, yes, but approximately the same massive size.

Thor’s eyes had drifted down to Loki’s mouth.

“Guys!” shouted a kid somewhere close.

Thor helped Loki up too when he stood up. It was the least he could do with how soggy Loki’s pants were.

The children had negotiated an armistice in their absence because they had gotten cold.

“It was a war well fought,” said Thor, elated for an excuse to go inside. He’d have been at the front of the horde if it wasn’t poor form. “I’m sure if it’d gone on, we’d have seen a decisive win, but that’s for another time.”

Frigga and the parents lamented the bedraggled state of their children.

“Coats and pants off.” For being complicit, Frigga shackled them with the responsibility of rotating the wet and dry clothes in and out of the dryer. “I’m sure they had fun, but it is freezing out there.”

“Sorry, Mom.”

“Yes, we meant no harm.”

Frigga patted their cheeks and told them that she’d see them at dinner, by which according to the thousands of loads of laundry she’d done, the laundry should’ve been done if they were doing it properly.

“Bet it’ll be done before,” said Thor. He deserved the side-eye.

Alone, Loki peeled off his jeans, and Thor took everything off to demonstrate that his cock hadn’t needed long in the warmth to reach its prior greatness.

“See something that interests you?” asked Thor.

Loki sipped some of his hot cocoa and claimed the top of the washer as his seat. “I’m simply glad to see you didn’t freeze your dick off.”

Thor found space between Loki’s knees for himself. “It could still use some warming up.”

Thor’s hands dragged up Loki’s thighs and stopped at the lines of Loki’s black undies. His thumbs traced the elastic keeping them taut to Loki’s thighs.

Loki brought his utopian hot cocoa to safety on the shelf holding a dozen varieties of fabric softener. “I might be willing to help.”

His briefs moved aside to let his cock and hole be free, rewarded with a stroke from Thor’s tough thumb from tip all the way down to taint. A flinch forward helped Thor’s thumb find its intended target, a nothing stretch but coming with a hum from Thor that had Loki fiending for Thor’s thumb to press over and pull his hole that much more open. “So wet already.”

“So hard.” Loki took ahold of Thor’s cock and gave it something to look forward to, rubbing it through his lips. Anticipation was never higher than when Loki’s hole found the head of Thor’s cock, a warning that Loki never heeded, a threat that was always followed through. His ankles in their holders above Thor’s ass supported the push of Thor’s hips, and Loki’d proposed this to Thor as a possible cause of the Big Bang, that some cosmic cock like Thor’s had shoved its way into the tight little singularity, a perfectly reasonable hypothesis when Thor’s cock brought spaces inside of Loki into existence with a burning stretch, and Thor’s cock only grew with each second he was inside of Loki.

The fullness would explode all of Loki if he didn’t ground himself against Thor, hugging Thor to him with arms and legs. That wedged Thor’s cock past his Medulla into his Frontal Lobe, stimulating Loki’s mouth to tell Thor how fucking filthy he wanted Thor to fuck him.

Thor fucked up into him in ball-and-thigh smacking thrusts that squelched with Loki’s hole’s wet demands for more, for Thor to keep hitting that spot next to Wernicke’s Area that turned Loki’s speech into monosyllabic sounds. 

Their foreheads lulled together, strands of moist hair stuck between their skin, and Loki’s hands slipped down the sweat on Thor’s shoulders, nails catching on Thor’s back.

“Oh, god. I love you,” said Thor, repeating it, groaning it, and those were the magic words for the pulsing that was Thor loading him up with his cum.

A scream found its way out of him, fingernails searching for purchase on Thor’s back, and all of the wonderful sensations the body has to offer attack him, every nanometer of him a free-for-all for elation to agony at how tight his body squeezed in on itself. He tensed at the alarming tightness at his hole, and helpless to it, couldn’t do more than whine in fear of the impending pain.

“Loki, Loki, sh, calm down. I’ve got you.” Thor’s lips found his, and Loki relaxed as Thor’s knot did not rip him open but plugged him full of Thor’s cum.

“Are you warm yet?”

“Never been warmer.”

“Good.”

Thor kissed the corner of his eye. He was the person that said “I love you” during sex regardless of it being a lie. Loki was sure that he did for those ten minutes of being inside of Loki.

“Oh!”

Frigga was stood in the doorway, one hand on the knob of that insanely silent door, the other carrying a plate of cookies.

“Mom.” Thor grabbed a coat from the wet pile and dropped it, awkwardly, over Loki’s lower half.

It was damp, the coat, damper than Loki’s dried out mouth.

Frigga shut the door on them and a good relationship with Loki.

“Oh, shit,” said Thor. An understatement.

“Why did you knot me?”

“I always knot you. Mom’s never walked in on me once. I thought I’d passed that risk period.”

“What? That makes no sense. Of course, the risk is lower when you move out.”

“How is this my fault?”

“She hates me now. She’ll never hate you. You’re her son.”

“Why would she hate you? You’re my guest. It’s my house. I’m supposed to not fuck you in the laundry room.”

“The laundry room is the least terrible part of this. She must think I’m some, some incubus that’s seducing you to steal your cum from you. God, Thor. How am I supposed to face her?”

“The way you did after she saw you naked. She will pretend she didn’t see anything.”

“She didn’t see me naked. That was your father.”

“What?”

“You assumed. Clearly, it was the least controversial possibility, so I let you go with it.”

“My father saw you naked. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“It was a humiliating experience. Why would I want to tell you?”

“I would’ve talked to him and had him apologize. Because I know he didn’t.”

“It was my fault for not locking the door.”

Thor’s hand forced his chin up. “Hey, whatever he said to you, you know it’s not true.”

Of course, he did. Loki wasn’t having Thor’s children for his hips to spread for.

He shrugs out of Thor’s hand. “It’s not like it matters. That pales in comparison to your Mom seeing me knotted and you covered in my cum.”

A minute earlier and Loki would’ve been en route to the hospital after uncomfortably squeezing off Thor’s knot.

“I’ll talk to her,” Thor said.

Loki savored his hot cocoa like the last cup he’d ever had like it.

#

“Can I help you in any way?” Loki ventured to ask Frigga after dinner.

Thor’s talk with her had gone in shrugs and a “Fine” from Thor when Loki’d asked. Thor had been stone-faced and thinking since.

Frigga was doing an exponentially better job at concealing how it’d gone. “Actually, I was going to ask if you’d help me with dessert.”

Disregarding the covered bowls ordered on the counter, it was just the two of them.

Loki uncovered and drizzled and sprinkled opposite her. “Pudding was one of the few dishes that my mother liked to make.”

“You’ve said she’s not a fan of cooking.”

“It involves too much standing around for her. But pudding, I think that she liked that she could walk away from it for a few hours, and it’d be done. She used to let me stir the wet ingredients and would let me lick the bowl after she transferred it onto the stove. I really enjoyed using the hand mixer.”

Frigga arranged the bowls on the serving plate. “Thor tells me you don’t use condoms.”

Loki deserved that. “I know that I’m not having sex with anyone else, let alone unprotected sex, and Thor surrendered having sex with others to assuage my worries, and we both get tested together once a month, which is more than the recommended every six months, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“A contradictory decision, having unsafe sex with someone that you don’t trust, don’t you think?”

“I trust Thor. I just also know that sex is a behavior of opportunity, and Thor has lots of them.”

“Yet Thor has surrendered, as you say, all of these opportunities for you. Wouldn’t it be less effort take advantage of all of those opportunities and decline you?”

“I’m far more convenient and drama-free.”

“What I’ve heard may beg to differ in regard to the drama,” Frigga said with a smile that was harsh coming from her. “Thor has never been one to settle for the convenient option. That boy seeks out challenges. If he’s working toward it, then it is a challenge, and one he must feel is worth it.”

“Having sex with your roommate who treated you like a person, not a demigod, has to be an ego stroke after having all the praise come easily.”

“You think very poorly of Thor.”

That was… a conclusion.

“I — no. I’m realistic.”

“Cynicism is realistic to the cynic.” Frigga held out a tray to him. “Be sure to lock the doors in the future.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

It was a first that Thor did not ask what Loki talked about his Thor’s Mom. Why would he ask when he’d heard it all himself earlier?

#

The gold and white striped onesie that Loki stepped into matched Thor’s — and Frigga’s and Odin’s and the entire family’s.

It was unnatural that something that came in Thor’s size also did in Loki’s lack thereof.

“You look adorable,” said Thor, smushing their cheeks together as his arms held Loki around the middle, testing if Loki could keep his cider off his onesie. “So tiny.”

Loki glanced down for signs of life in Thor’s crotch. The compression shorts Thor had no choice on outside of jeans were doing their job, but Loki knew better. “One day, I’m going to gain weight to spite you.”

“Let’s not be unrealistic.”

Loki shoved him at the shoulder away from Loki’s chair and more firmly in his own.

“No violence at Christmas Eve dinner,” said Bragi, and as he sipped his spiked cider, he gave Thor and Loki one of those looks of knowing as if most of the damned table didn’t know too. 

With the sheer amount of food offered and the disparity between their plate sizes, the strategy finally had its time to shine: Loki got half of everything while Thor took care of the other half, and together, they put the plates rim to rim and had the whole of everything. They were visionaries.

“If I could go back in time and take your gift back to the store for not introducing me to this sooner,” said Tyr, “I would.”

In their gold and white stripes, they migrated to the den to bask in the rainbow awe of Frigga’s two story, fake-snow-dusted tree, the guardian of the at least hundred, mostly meticulously wrapped gifts and gift bags sprawling underneath it.

To gain access to its bounty, one had to answer Odin’s question of, “What is the best gift the year has given you?”

For Odin, that was “a successful family and a mate that continues to show what a fortunate man I am.” Head leaning on his shoulder, Frigga followed that up with: “The greatest gift has been to see what wonderful young men my sons are becoming.”

Loki couldn’t not feel like those were shots fired at him.

Everyone else couldn’t stop being grateful for girlfriends and husbands and wives and boyfriends and children, everyone except Tyr whose greatest gift was his promotion of military rank and that was “a gift from me to myself by working hard.” The order they’d gone around the room would have Loki going last.

Thor stood up. “My greatest gift this year has been getting out and seeing that the world outside of Norway isn’t too bad. I’ve made some lifelong friends since going to Boston and met some people that have opened my mind.” There was Loki’s shout-out. “Oh, and um, Loki came into my life. That’s been pretty great. Believe it or not.”

Loki rolled his eyes, and as Thor lowered back down into the bean bag beside him, Loki gave him the entire thing to have. 

It wasn’t all of their attentions that had Loki’s heart tripping up but fucking Thor’s. He’d had to single out Loki.

“The greatest gift I received this year was Harvard. I knew I was going to get in, but whether I was going to be allowed to go was a different story. I was. That opened the door for me to encounter people that don’t think it’s annoying or worthy of a punch when I want to discuss _Quanta_ ’s newsletter. I’ve had a lot of important experiences since going to Harvard and formed a connection with someone that defies all of what I knew about people for obvious reason, but who knows? A year from now, we could not have spoken in months because there are just universal constants, and some things just don’t work.”

The confusion was its own being in the room.

“This year has been great though,” Loki said with a reassuring smile, and he sat himself down on the ground beside the bean bag.

Frigga granted them permission for the looting to begin.

Loki had an overdue date with a restroom that he told Thor to not wait around for him to come back from.

_“Open my gift yet?”_ Býleistr had asked 30 minutes ago. _“Opened yours.”_

He sent a picture, tongue stuck out, holding the signed Nicklas Bäckström jersey Loki had camped outside of a professional ice fight game for.

_“How did Father like my gift?”_ Loki asked.

_“He likes it ^_^.”_

Loki splashed some sanity back into his face with the cold water.

Everyone was too engrossed over their fishing rods and Tiffany & Co. bracelets to notice him coming back. Loki found his gifts untouched, front and center, and grabbed the one wrapped in dabbing Santa Clauses that was from Býleistr.

Býleistr had gotten him 50 pairs of socks and brass knuckles. Hel went with _Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice,_ which he’d been pressuring Loki to get, so he could be vindicated that it was genuinely hard, and a sweater with mini laptops and circuit boards as the pattern. The rest that weren’t cards with cash, and folk wisdom about attending class and not getting one-night stands pregnant/not getting pregnant were the clothes from Mom, which he’d only bothered bringing one of the bags that’d arrived of — Mom always bought him clothes — and from Father, a check, no card, with the amount he hoped would spare him of any texts or calls from Loki.

Frigga wrote a card. Frigga also had a working heart and a pure soul, especially to write the kind words she had about how she was happy to have Loki be a part of their family — for now — and how she appreciated him taking care of Thor like dissuading Thor from getting drunk the night before exams was a lot on Loki’s end. _Just for Fun_ by Linus was an appropriate gift for it, however, but Loki flipped open the cover to a message from Linus to him — yes, the father of Linux to him — wishing him luck in his computing endeavors, and Loki wanted to shove ahead of Bragi to the time machine to interrupt he and Thor in the laundry room and save Frigga’s eyes.

“Good,” said Thor as he got down beside Loki, “you haven’t opened mine yet either.”

Loki placed the now invaluable copy of the book back into the box Frigga had put it in. “Wait, I have to open Balder’s.”

“He got me condoms.”

Balder got Loki fake Vulcan ears.

“Guess that means you’ve officially become his favorite brother,” Thor said. “Come on. Open mine.”

The silver wrapping paper Loki had seen scraps of in the trash can covered the printer paper refill-sized box from Thor.

Thor had splurged for a gift box too.

It was a photobook.

“So,” Thor was saying as Loki opened to the first page where there were the Polaroids from their trip to New York City for Thanksgiving, “I was thinking — I know. That’s rare — and we’re always talking about stuff we’ve wanted to do but haven’t had the chance to.” Like Six Flags, which tickets to were wedged in one photo pocket, and beside them, tickets to Cedar Point. “Experiences are only as good as the people you share them with, so I figure if we do this”—like fucking _A State of Trance Utrecht_ and the plane tickets—“then we’re going to have a lot of good memories to look back on.”

There were empty pockets, Comic Con, Disney World, simply Texas, and after those, pages of blank pockets that would always remain that way, little did Thor know.

“Wow. Thor, this is—” Loki looked away from Mr. Here and Fucking Now Thor’s hopeful, naïve eyes. “Open mine.”

Thor eviscerated Loki’s fine matte green wrapping paper. For his recklessness, he tore into Loki’s slightly smaller second box. “Really?”

After the fourth slighter smaller box, Thor’s impatience turned into spiteful excitement. “I’m going to enjoy the socks in this. Going to wear the hell out of them.”

After that box, there was only the Transformers box.

“No fucking way.” This face Thor was making resembled the one he made when his orgasm was on the rebound with a heavy influence of the one when his first sip of coffee in the morning was just right due to some divine intervention by the Coffee Fairies Thor pledged fealty to.

Yes, worth sending a pic of his butthole to the hikikomori searching for a “good home” for his collectible to make more room for his piss jars.

“Who did you kill to get this?”

“The question should be ‘how many’?”

Thor’s head couldn’t stop shaking. “This is Mint in the Box, Lo.”

“That was what I ordered.”

“You know I love you, right?”

That platonic “I love you” was going on the mantle for Loki to fawn over with a glass of wine ten years from now.

“How could you not?” Loki asked.

“I’m going to go put this upstairs,” said Thor. “I need you around to guard this from me opening it.”

For all intents and purposes, it was Christmas. Loki could indulge in a cuddle after the sex. He’d never have the opportunity again.

“And I bet it’s going to take you a while to find the right spot. We should get what we can in case we don’t come back down.”

“Good idea.” Thor told them all, not believing it, no, but believing there was a small possibility, “We’ll be back down.”

“Good night, boys,” Frigga said as she returned with a tray of freshly baked almond cookies for Loki to take a handful of.

“Good night.”

#

Hogun, the Finnish transplant and last piece of Thor’s forever friends, arrived for the gift exchange that involved a lot of “oh”s and laughing that carried into the room over where Loki was learning to knit from Thor’s grandma.

Loki had a basic but well-executed hat knitted when Thor poked his head in to tell him they were going out to dinner. “Wait” kept Thor’s head in that position for Loki to give it the honor of bearing Loki’s hat which Thor, in a burst of wisdom that was related to the milliliters of Loki’s DNA that had to be floating around in his bloodstream, realized suited him even better than his usual gray pom-pom hat, and “Hey, thanks for new hat. I’ve needed one.”

Loki booped him on his nose. “You’re very welcome.”

Hogun witnessed that boop and had nothing to say unlike Volstagg or Fandral might’ve. He was the rock breaking the stream of ridiculousness of the three of them, by the strength of his presence alone, keeping the yelling about the incorrect call in an ice fight game to a level that wasn’t hacking years off Loki’s full hearing range.

Loki waded in to ask Hogun, his predecessor in being the voice of reason for Thor, about himself, but Hogun kept it short and bittersweet like asking about his philosophy degree would expose secrets Hogun was beholden to keep for Thor.

It’d been too long since Loki played fifth wheel.

He did have a Sangria pushed on him by Fandral, who was legal to drink, trying to “loosen” Loki up for his suffering. Sangria made the ice fight rehashing and reminiscing he couldn’t participate in sweeter and pleasantly warmer.

“You look like pink lemonade,” said Volstagg to him. “I bet he’s wasted.”

“No, I’m just pale.” Loki shoved some fries into his mouth from the plate Thor ordered for them. 

“So, Loki,” said Fandral, stirring his martini with the umbrella it’d come with, “any cute girls or boys catch your eye in the States yet?”

Unlike his family, why wouldn’t Thor have been crystal clear that he and Loki were just friends with Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg?

If Thor’s family had been shown Thor scoping out the other tables for souvenirs like he was now, they wouldn’t have entertained the idea.

“That depends on why you’re asking.”

Volstagg snorted, shoulder knocking Hogun’s not that Hogun reacted. Hogun’d had years to familiarize.

“I can see that you are, I guess, good looking,” Fandral said, “but you’re not my type. You’re not female for one.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Loki said.

“Recently?”

“Before in general.”

“Thor claims that Boston has the hottest people around. Someone like you, you wouldn’t have any trouble.”

“Who says I have? Everyone knows you don’t get into a relationship in your first year. That mistake is for your second year.”

“I met my girlfriend in our first year,” Volstagg said. “We’ve been together for five years now. Getting married next summer before she goes for her Ph.D.”

“The exception, not the rule. I’m sure you’ve heard this from Thor. After he sowed his oats orientation week, he had a fan club that found out where he lived, and there’d be a girl waiting at our door anytime I got back from class. When I brought forth a complaint”—about the fact that Thor hadn’t asked him and it’d been foisted upon him, the duty to break it to these poor women that they were not Cinderella—“Thor said it wasn’t his fault and claimed, ‘They should’ve known it wasn’t going to be serious. Who gets serious in freshman year?’ He didn’t say many wise things those first few weeks, but that was one of them.”

“I said that about them,” Thor said. “It wasn’t about—” He laughed that caught way as Volstagg gave him a suspicious eyebrow.

“No, don’t recant under duress. You were right.”

“But I wasn’t.”

Loki rolled his eyes at the lack of spine. “I’ll forgive you for betraying our just cause to keep yourself in their good graces.”

Thor might’ve been irritated by Loki joining the hour of calling Thor out, but he did pay for dinner for all of them still, nothing unusual with them, but going off Fandral and Volstagg’s fake tears and Hogun’s “Touching, you really did miss us,” a new hobby of Thor’s. Why wouldn’t the man whose entire existence was a flex also flex with money just for shits and giggles?

Loki got back pats until “the next time” from Volstagg and Fandral and a nod from Hogun and left Thor to reassure them he really hadn’t meant what Loki said while Loki prepped for bed.

Because why not, he shut off all the lights and assumed the sleeping position for Thor to have to decide between being a twat turning them back on or fumble around in the dark.

Or use the glow of his phone as he would back at their dorm.

Safe by the bed, Thor locked it on the nightstand to free his hands to strip. Being in the dark with Thor’s mostly naked body was better than being in the light with any of the others that’d come before. Madness.

“I know you’re awake.”

“Good. I wasn’t trying to hide it.”

Thor’s skin followed the line of Loki’s until Loki’s ran out. “I meant what I said.”

“I know. You had to—”

“No, at dinner. I don’t see why you wouldn’t get serious with someone if you wanted to no matter where you were in life. There are 80-year-olds dating each other at the retirement home Mom volunteers at.”

“Unlike them, I have the advantage of being able to wait a few decades before I shackle myself to someone. I understand coming to sudden realizations, but about this? What did you three talk about earlier? Is this about your one friend Sif?”

“It blows my mind that someone so smart can be so stupid.”

In the dark, Loki’s glare was lost but it was there. “Stupid? I’m stupid?”

“Yes, you’re stupid. Anyone with a brain can see that I’ve been talking about you.”

“What?”

“You can see a stranger in the line at the café and know he’s having an affair with his secretary, but you can’t see that I have it fucking bad for you. It’s like you don’t want to see it.”

“There’s nothing to see. There isn’t.”

“How can you tell me what I feel? How does that make sense?”

“You having feelings for me doesn’t make sense. You’re… you.”

“I’m me.”

“Yes! Look in a mirror, Thor. There is a line that circles the earth repeatedly of people that would kill to have sex with you. And that’s just covering the outside. You're what kids and middle-aged men want to be when they grow up. So many people meet you and you instantly become their favorite person. There’s no way, functionally, that you are into me.”

“Just say you don’t feel the same and get it over with.”

There was something around and in his throat. He couldn’t feel it, but it was there, and it was keeping him from talking.

“Go ahead, Loki. You have the words for everything else.”

You knew what a great idea was?

Sleeping.

Loki committed himself fully to sleeping, squeezing his eyes tight to keep them from getting any ideas otherwise and got himself to a place where no one would disturb himself from that sleep.

“Loki.”

Nope. Sleeping.

“Loki, you’re not going to fucking sleep your way out of this.”

“Stop it,” he told those hands dragging him back onto his back.

“No.”

His kicking and flailing to defend himself just stopped, neutralized by being pinned.

Thor’s stare didn’t care that Loki couldn’t see it. It still gulped up Loki’s soul. “You feel the same.”

“Can’t we pretend this never happened?” he asked. “We work fine as friends. Relationships come with all sorts of issues, and, and there won’t be a break-up a month from now to ruin being roommates.”

“You mean keep being boyfriends but without calling it being boyfriends?”

That was laughable. “We haven’t been—”

Loki could how one might’ve had that impression.

Loki’s limbs were free to move as they pleased again for some reason.

“I’m not going to pressure you into anything. How this goes, it’s up to you.”

Whatever was choking him now, Loki knew what it was — the colossal weight of having the burden shifted onto him.

Thor wanted to be with Loki, and in a grand show of that, he was doing nothing about it. It was up to Loki to be the prime mover.

Such bullshit.

#

Loki was not ignoring Thor so much as not initiating interactions with Thor.

Because Thor was also not initiating interactions with him, it could’ve come off as him ignoring Thor to be fair to Balder.

“So, why are you both ignoring each other?”

“I’m not—” Loki re-crossed his arms. “For reasons.”

“I wanted us to go to town, but if you’re going to make it weird, never mind. Nanna and I will go alone.”

“I won’t make it weird.”

Thor must’ve told Balder the same — lied to Balder, inadvertently like Thor always lied. They weren’t lies like Loki’s lies were but accidental untruths born out of Thor’s post-scarcity supply of optimism. Thor couldn’t see himself making it weird by pointedly speaking to Nanna and Balder only or never making eye contact with Loki because to Thor, it wasn’t weird. It was him having the upper hand.

If Thor thought Loki having to peruse ironic sweaters without anyone to snicker at them with would break him, he didn’t know Loki at all.

Magnus Muscles asked if the seat across Loki was unoccupied and was already occupying it when Loki gave him permission. The last book this guy had read was a decade ago, and he had what Thor loved to point out “overdeveloped delts” that gave him permanent shoulder pads and suggested that he wasn’t as strong as he wanted Loki to think.

However, what was that right across the street, Thor coming out of the organics shop with Nanna and Balder?

When Loki had to go, the meathead voluntold Loki for his number, timing thrusting his phone at Loki with when Thor’s eyes would’ve for sure recognized that Loki-shaped object in the window was, in fact, Loki.

“I—”

Thor humiliated Mini-Muscles’ existence. “What’s going on?”

Death by cop applied to this idiot admitting to Thor, like the unhappy line from blond eyebrow to blond eyebrow said was clearly not a good idea to, that he was after this “cutie’s” number, Loki being said “cutie.” 

“You’re not getting his number,” said Thor. “So, take your phone and run off.”

After his survival instinct gradually kicked in, he took Thor’s advice.

“What happened to it being up to me?” Loki asked.

“Nothing. It is up to you — you and me. Not you and that silly twat.” Sometimes, it was inconceivable that Thor was dead serious about the thoughts he was putting to words. “Wasn’t that obvious?”

Only in Thor’s mind would the choice default between “Loki and him” and “Loki and nobody.” Why wouldn’t it be between “Loki and him” and “fucking misery and sadness” which what it might as well have been to Thor? Like, when Loki had kissed him that first time, it hadn’t surprised him because how couldn’t Loki have saw inevitability on Thor’s mouth the moment they met?

Thor wasn’t leaving any choice up to Loki except how long until he realized it was Loki and him.

Thor hadn’t realized how masochistic and suicidal Loki could be from the weeks Loki had happily let their relationship redline at jerking off with their thighs touching.

Loki nodded like yes, on second thought, that was obvious.

“Let’s go before Balder gets a chance to pretend he’s going to drive home and Nanna starts encouraging him.”

Loki skirted past the hand Thor tried pushing Loki’s “choice” along with. As unbelievable as Thor and Balder with his laughing “Thought you two were off sucking off each other’s faces” — and Nanna’s giggling — would’ve found it, there was no countdown above Loki’s head till a rush of dopamine cascaded thoughts of eternal commitment to Thor.

Thor was comfortable keeping the words as necessary with Loki and splurging them on his cousins and his brother, Odin, and Frigga with the biggest, brightest smile knowing it was all just going to fall into place. Loki would get over himself and take care of “them.” How couldn’t he want the handholding on the thigh and the mid-conversation cheekbone kisses with Thor? They all knew it that Thor was as good as it got, especially for Loki.

He could see it in Frigga’s eyes when she added extra whipped cream to his cocoa.

Sucking on that whipped cream, Loki took a break from the judgment having his cocoa solo in some reading nook repurposed as a throw pillow store with complementary photos of painfully cheesing little Thor and the smaller rays of human sunshine Balder.

Býleistr: _NYE planzzzz?_

Helblindi: _x2_

Loki left them with a :winkyface: and just when he was about to leave his conversations, he found an old, deserted one.

Thor was not a given for Loki. He was, in fact, a choice. Just like Svaðilfari had been.

_Home for the holidays?_

Like that, the reply came. _I thought the gifts were finished. Spoke too soon._

_I am._

_How long are you?_

Loki told him: _I_ _’m not home specifically, but I’m in your 20 km radius for while._

_Just so you know :cat:._

When Thor asked, “You alright?” to him when Thor finally groped himself into the other side of his bed, with his plans for tomorrow made, Loki replied, “Mhm.”

#

After Idunn confirmed their afternoon plans lunching and reacquainting with the museums over in Oslo, Loki piped up that he would not be joining them. He explained to their cocked eyebrows and to Thor’s blossoming annoyance, “I am meeting up with my old friend.”

“What friend?” asked Thor.

Loki didn’t need to answer because Bragi was saying, “You could invite them along. I don’t think anyone would mind.”

“Yes, you’ve met all of Thor’s people,” Tyr said. “Let us see some of yours.”

“You could have them for dinner,” said Frigga. “Tyr is right. We would love to meet one of your friends. I’m quite sure they’ll be as nice as you to have.”

“I’ll try to convince them,” he said.

Thor’s attrition battle against Loki could wait while Thor folded his arms parochially and asked with the skepticism on thick, “So, where are you and your friend going?”

“To eat. Maybe other things.”

“Other things” conjured for Thor the _Magic_ cards on Loki’s desk and the cargo short wearers Loki could be spotted around corners in campus playing them with. So, he had to see this friend of Loki’s, the geek to end all geeks whose geekiness had preserved him into Loki’s somewhat good graces. The urge was blood-fueled and had him and a few of his cousins and brother all loitering around the front room to look out the window to see Grand Duke Geek’s arrival.

The eyes couldn’t do picking up the engine of some super car like ears could.

“I’ll see you all later,” Loki called, and he was shutting the front door when Svað’s orange Ferrari Something found one of the empty spots behind their, by comparison, bland cars and trucks.

The lush almond shag always parted in the middle rose up from the driver’s side and along with it came Svað’s low res face and him lifting his hand to wave in that stoic, equestrian-trained way. 

Loki came down to meet him halfway.

Svað hadn’t changed in the half year it’d been, the burning summer grass of his scent no exception. Those hazel eyes could look black when they tried. “Apricot” should’ve stopped making him blush years ago, but Thor didn’t do pet names unless you counted “Lo,” so he’d regressed. “I’m happy to see you, but I need to use the loo.”

“We should—”

Svað’s decision-making also hadn’t changed, and he was headed for the welcome party in the doorway headed by a very unimpressed looking Thor. They had ordered spectacled, pimply geek, not this scruffy specimen out of a _Polo_ catalog. “I’m sorry to intrude,” Svað was telling Thor and his emotional support, “but I really have to use the restroom. Would you mind?”

“Sure,” Thor said. He didn’t make room for Svað, but Svað never had trouble making room for himself.

Bragi politely directed him to the nearest bathroom while his relatives stewed.

“That’s your friend,” said Thor.

“Svaðilfari,” Loki replied.

Thor was deciding all of what he didn’t like about the few seconds of Svað he’d had when Svað came out.

“It was nice to meet you all. And thank you for the restroom.” Svað couldn’t stop from falling right back into the old routine of a hand to Loki’s back, something socially reserved for the closest of friends, particularly special ones. “Apricot, let’s go.”

Thor watched Svað guide Loki to his car and watched Svað open and close the door for Loki. But he was Loki’s only choice, right?

Not so fast. Speed was better reserved outside of the confines of a track for types like Svað, people that stayed in their lane. When the whole world was your field to frolic in or so you’d been told, that had to be hard to accept, but Thor was learning a valuable lesson while he angrily chewed at the restaurant table speculating about Svað, well, until Thor shut that down because the only person that could talk about it was him to himself. All of the art and artifacts would be rebounding off of Thor’s internal ranting about how big of a mistake Loki was making.

Talking Formula 1 and the misadventures of college with Svað whose only agenda was keeping his life on track which encompassed keeping Loki happy and consequently, less chaotic, and that would get boring on a long-term basis — used to — but this wasn’t a long-term basis. It was food and a walk around the town that would’ve had a lot more stopping into the shops with Thor and of course, the sidewalk obstructing kissing. PDA had never been Svad’s thing if it wouldn’t fly in the stands of a horseback riding club. He would’ve been outraged if he knew the things that Loki had gotten up to with Thor in public places.

“Your friend,” Svað said, “Thor, you said he was your roommate.”

“He is. For once, I lucked up and got someone not absolutely insufferable.”

“He must be more than that if you’re staying with him, meeting his family.”

“Hence, ‘friend.’”

“He’s alpha.”

“He is. Keen nose as always.”

Svað’s hand remembered its unsavory habit of squeezing the back of Loki’s neck when he wanted Loki’s full attention and tried to assume the position, but Loki ducked with a “Svað” before he could and stopped walking.

“What?”

“You’re breathtaking.”

“America’s no paradise, but it isn’t some toxic waste dump either. Only my lungs show the damage.”

“I miss—”

“Haven’t you heard of jerking off before a meeting to not make questionable decisions?”

“Who’s to say I didn’t? You’ve always made me an animal.” That was a synonym to a phrase out of the Thor Book.

For variety, he stayed in place for the follow-through of Svað’s radio-broadcast decision to lean in for lip-to-lip. Primacy bias had been real, that was loud and clear with Svað’s teeth just there against his and his lips somewhere between flesh and rubber sucking Loki’s. With no point of comparison, hell yeah this turned gravity down. But Loki had been in 0 _g_ last week with his lips to Thor’s luxury pillow plush lips touching his in a dark space in the hallway, Thor’s beard the right kind of acupuncture to keep Loki from floating into the ceiling or the sky, into space without him like Thor would’ve never forgiven. Well, until Loki gave him that one look that Thor would flare his nostrils and internally curse himself for falling for it, promising that there wouldn’t be a next time like there’d been a lifetime of next times in the few months they’d known each other.

Loki had his lips back to himself. Those weren’t Thor’s eyes waiting for his.

Talk about a plot twist.

Peak Thor, right, cornering Loki into making a choice by proactively sabotaging any and all kisses that didn’t involve him. But again, he overlooked Loki’s willingness to self-restrict. Svað’s plans for romancing till sunset were for another timeline. This one, Loki asked him if he minded providing a ride back to the house and then, to the airport.

Hoder hanging back to read seamlessly fit in with Loki not having to pick the front door lock. “Forget something?” he asked, and yeah, Loki had. He’d forgotten his sense back in Boston.

Laufey was a texture of discomfort Loki knew as well his own skin. The suckiness of it, he had a lifetime of training to cope. Their relationship was at rock bottom. The lasting consequences would be, what, one less than the two phone calls a year he bothered? What a great loss.

Thor’s door opening was the sort of spice that Loki’s life ate right up. And it being Thor, that was just perfect. “So, you are here,” he was saying. “I texted you. Called you a few times—”

“My phone’s on silent.” Last but not least, his toothbrush packed into his knapsack.

“Where are you going?”

“To my father’s.” His knapsack had his back, so he could meet Thor’s eyes. “My brothers want me for New Year’s.”

“Since when?”

“Today.”

“‘Today.’”

“Listen, um, tell your Mom that I’m incredibly grateful that she had me, and your father, I guess you can tell him too—”

“Why don’t you tell them this? What’s the rush? New Year’s Eve is in two days.”

“But I’m leaving now. I’ll see you back in Boston.”

You know, after Thor didn’t mock his step back.

“Excuse me.”

“No, you excuse me. You’re fucking leaving because — what? You don’t have the balls to tell me you don’t feel the same after your little date?”

“I know because you haven’t seen them, you don’t think they exist, but I do have balls.”

“You have the least fucking balls of anyone alive!”

“Fuck your balls, Thor. Maybe if you had as much brains as you do balls then you’d realize that us? It doesn’t end anyway except in fucking radioactive fallout. You think you’re invincible, so the concept of something actually affecting you is so beyond comprehension — let alone having something like that happen to you because your life is just so perfect and storybook, but —”

“Can you for a fucking second stop thinking the world is out to get you? And if it is, who the hell cares? I’m not.”

“Now. Sooner or later, you’ll feel differently, and I’m not willing to be your, your crash test dummy for figuring out that other people aren’t made in some divine image like you are. I’m not perfect like you are —”

“But you are. At least to me. You call me self-centered — it’s like you don’t even care what I think. It’s all what you think I think. Do you even care?”

That he would even ask that said it all. “You don’t need to concern yourself worrying because it doesn’t matter. I’m leaving.”

“Running. You’re running. Because you’re scared that… that this is it.”

“My fucking god, you really don’t live in the same world as the rest of us. You’ve known me for all of, what, five months?”

“That’s what the calendar says. But you and me both know it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like — you know.”

Like something Loki was going to be rehashing with his psychiatrist ten, twenty years from now.

“So, if you’re leaving,” said Thor while dragging the suitcase out of the closet, “I’m leaving too. I wanted you to come home with me. I’ll go home with you.”

“No. Alright? You’re not meeting my father.”

Thor kept up the charade of dropping, not even packing, sweatshirts and flannels back into the suitcase like this was happening.

Then, Tyr was shouting, “Loki,” as diarrhea icing on the shit cake. Tyr wasn’t a situation that a “What?” would’ve solved, so Loki had to leave Thor to pretend that he was going anywhere but to family dinner — home with Loki, comical — to go ask to Tyr’s face in the foyer, “Yes, Tyr?”

Svað. He asked if Loki needed help while Tyr complained about him taking up a parking space with his “toy car.” The help Loki needed was pharmaceutical and therapeutic and probably electrical. Svað’s stable of baggage was stale and not what Loki needed.

“Thank you for waiting, but don’t worry about it.” He smiled for the physical contact that Tyr’s glare and not wanting to take those last few steps would not permit and like he had last time, said that he’d talk to him later.

Svað had zero acknowledgment for Tyr, but Tyr had posturing that had none of the charm it’d have in Thor. After Svað had the door slammed on him, Tyr tried turning his itch for a fight on Loki, but Loki was right back up the stairs to go handle Thor.

They almost collided in Thor’s bedroom door.

The suitcase was in Thor’s hand, and Thor had his weekender. “Ready?”

What an asshole.

“What? I thought we were going to Iceland.”

Under no circumstances could Thor meet Laufey. Loki had to get himself far away from the idea of it and the seat on Thor’s windowsill turned the chance down to low. “Fine. You win, okay? I’ll stay.”

“I don’t want to fucking win. I…” Like always, never asking, just assuming that Loki’d make room for him on the windowsill. And like always, turning out to be right. He was touching Loki’s knees in a total fuck-you to the boundary of his bent legs, but Loki looked away from him out the window where Svað’s car wasn’t anymore. “I want you, and I want you to want me back. You know? Because I… I don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t have you.”

Zero irony in Thor’s crestfallen face. Because that was a reasonable fear for the guy who’d had everything.

“See, Thor? We’re not even together, and it’s already like this.”

“It’s just like breaking in new skates.”

Romantic analogy.

“Hey.” It was evil that Thor could look at him like this and one day, not.

“We should go” were wooden fence posts that’d be cardboard to Thor, but for now, let him get up and away from Thor’s hands and the rest of him. “Your mom and family, they’re probably waiting, and after a while, it’s going to obviously not be your fault.”

No distinction existed for Tyr since Thor hadn’t treated Loki like an inanimate fucking object and thrown him over his shoulder to carry out like Tyr would’ve. He yelled, “Learn to turn ass down, you knucklehead,” and Thor’s dismissive head shake in the passenger seat loosened Loki’s seatbelt a little.

It was Thor’s fault. If he’d let Loki go in peace, they wouldn’t be jeered at by an already-seated table of people all in some way or other seeing the imaginary chain-link leash Thor had on Loki. Thor pulling out his chair — and it was peripheral in a way that Svað’s hadn’t been — and speaking for them both saying, “We got carried away talking.”

As for no Svað? “He had other commitments,” said Loki. “But we caught up how we needed.”

Frigga was looking at him like she’d seen him packing his bag with her third eye. “Well, I’m happy that you’re back here with us.”

“Me too,” said Thor.

The me three was from the waitress that’d smiled up on Thor’s other side to, contrary to common sense because the table was an oval they were near an apex of, start serving entrées. She fauxpologized about overhearing but said she agreed, mistaking Frigga for having been talking to Thor. Because she and her admittedly impressive cleavage would’ve been and were. She gave her name to Thor because he’d missed that intro that’d come with the water that’d been waiting for them.

“You’re 0-2 tonight,” Balder told her. “My brother Thor here is taken too.”

She replied, “Oh?”

“It’s not like he has a wedding ring on,” said Loki, touching Thor’s shoulder like she couldn’t miss, and Thor was turning from Magnificent Cleavage to Loki. “Easy mistake.”

Thor tried lip-biting out of the smile but gave up. “Yeah. It’s cool. I’m sure you’ll luck up.”

Maybe Loki would after some rubbed off on him from his… boyfriend.

#

“You can’t convince me they weren’t boyfriends all along, and Loki put him up to this,” Bragi, as some would say, salted to Idunn, thinking their wedding rings together Captain Planet-style formed a soundproof bubble on the back porch the window near Loki opened onto.

To not give Bragi too much credit, it absolutely wasn’t an original idea among Thor’s family. Only Frigga knew from her separate real adult/fake adult conferences with them that they had been only friends however stretch they were getting out of that label. Her husband had been seeing grandkids and a wedding he’d make the most backhanded complimentary speech about Loki ever at since the airport at least.

They’d come to terms with Thor’s questionable decision making for the most part.

Thor had streaks of brilliance like using a bowl-plate combo for max cookie and cheesecake retention from kitchen to the reading nook. “Dude, it was hilarious. So, when I’m getting cheesecake, Father comes in and doesn’t suspect anything because I got rid of the plate after I cleared out the cookies. He thinks I have like pudding in the bowl. He’s gonna be pissed when he finds out we took the last caramel ones.”

“But he’ll never know.”

Hoder did a drive-by side-eye like their hands weren’t fully visible, albeit suspiciously still.

“So, I talked to Mom.”

“About…?”

“Everyone else is leaving tomorrow morning. So, she said she would be down to have your brothers here for New Year’s.”

“You talked to your mom about it?”

“Yeah. She likes you, man. Wants to get to know who you like too. It’s Mom’s thing. You should know that by now.”

“That’s really thoughtful of her.” Of Thor too. “My brothers are not going to be at all interested, but —”

“Come on. They have to wanna meet my family. Our families are — could one day be a bigger family. We should all be getting used to each other.”

“Do you remember move-in day? Because I remember move-in day. A lot of maturing and very small, staged doses is the solution.”

“At least Helblindi. He’s not too big of an asshole.”

“Because Býleistr will let him come alone here to be with your family. You’ll get your chance to fail at getting blackmail material on me from my family.”

Thunder wished to strike the fear of Frigga yelling Thor’s name.

Basic instinct, grabbing the one caramel cookie left, biting it in half, and packing one of them between Thor’s teeth. Thor replied a food-muffled yes, but Frigga was already onto the scent of their fear.

“What’s wrong?” asked Thor’s full mouth.

“Your father says that the caramel toffee cookies I left for him are gone.”

There was a slice of chocolate cheesecake on Thor’s lap and two almond cookies in the bowl on Loki’s.

“RIP him,” said Thor. “RIP us. I was the last one he saw in the kitchen.”

“RIP me? I’d like to be excluded from this narrative.”

“Nope. For better or worse. We’re a unit, now.”

“Frigga, I would like the record to show that I have not stepped foot into the kitchen since earlier today. I was going to get cookies, yes, but my appetite was suppressed by Bragi and Idunn PDA’ing in front of them an hour too short for my brain ago.”

“Those dicks cleared a plate. And to traumatize my boyfriend? We’re the immature kids though. Sure.”

Frigga asked where Bragi and Idunn were, and Loki pointed to the open window’s screen onto the back patio.

A manly screech. “Oh my god, I’m sorry” from Idunn. And Frigga coming back inside with a huff and declaring, “Why can no one here have sex in a proper bedroom?”

Wisely, they even waited until she was gone to laugh into each other’s shoulders.

“So.” Loki asked into Thor’s cheek, “Do you want to go have sex in a proper bedroom?”

It wasn’t a waste of cheesecake after all to smear it on Loki’s asshole. The opposite really. 

#

“When you two come back for your Spring vacation—”

And Loki swore he didn’t mean to, but his mouth was interrupting Frigga to say, “Back?”

Flawlessly, she picked up saying, “For that week, we’ll be going down to the house in Amalfi, but in case there are any delays, you will come here first.” Her impeccable manicure imperceptibly flexed where her fingers were intertwined on her lap, the Frigga equivalent of a heel click Loki’d picked up. “That way we’ll all be together.”

“When the ship sinks,” Thor said, smile like it could only get after an entire life of being in the sunshine of Frigga, “we all go down with it.”

“It won’t be much of a family vacation if you two aren’t there, or if you’re down there doing who knows what while we’re stranded here.”

“’Who knows what.’ Mom, when did you get so raunchy?”

Leaning back in her chair, Frigga couldn’t pass up “When you decided to desecrate my washer.”

“Eh, okay.” Thor flexed that arm showing up the back of the couch behind Loki. “Fair.”

Family Spring vacation was such a foregone conclusion that Loki’d have been crowning himself with a dunce cap asking them why there hadn’t been a conversation, not one by any physical means — if Frigga was imbued with mystical powers that she’d partially passed on to Thor, who of course, hadn’t mastered them like she did, Loki wouldn’t have been surprised — about if Loki was coming back. Because of course he was, right? He and Thor, they were a “ _they,”_ had been when Loki hadn’t gone to top off that lifetime supply of parental neglect with Mom and Laufey and sealed it in blood.

That was now when Thor was riding the high of proving that everyone that wasn’t related to him by blood wanted him. When Thor sobered, sharing his quality time with his family wouldn’t include Loki because no, Loki wasn’t family.

No matter how Odin called him “son.” That was wishful thinking that Thor’d lock down someone with a high IQ and Norwegian blood instead of some American that thought _Harry Potter_ was heavy reading. Loki was a womb with limbs. It didn’t take more than one of many awkward one-on-ones from Thor’s piss breaks and top lad phone calls Odin told him he didn’t want to hear and Frigga’s unfettered optimism in Loki’s social abilities to realize that. Like Odin hadn’t made his mind up move-in day on Loki between the ears. He might as well have been interviewing Loki to harvest his eggs for Thor each time they “talked” because “talked” was more like Odin intelligence testing Loki.

Whatever. Odin not giving a flying fuck about Loki as a person was a small price to pay for “I’m gonna spend the rest of my life making love to you, Lo.”

“How about you start with the rest of the year?”

It was 10:05, so that wasn’t even their best.

When Thor’s knot made Loki’s hole sure it’d had enough meant nothing though, not like how Thor tested the weight limit of Loki’s bones, barricading him from anything but muscle and a stupid amount of sticky, wet body heat, and Thor, the genuine weirdo, decided to muzzle himself with Loki’s hair while mumbling back.

Door banging.

“Come downstairs,” shouted Balder. “Come on! We’re about to toast.”

“Fuck off! I’m inside my boyfriend.”

“I’m telling Mom that!”

Laughing while being knotted was like acupuncture.

“God, he’s such a little shit.”

“I like him.”

“Yeah, you would. You’re one too. My sexy little shit.”

“You’re lucky I already came twice, or my dick would be like dough after that.”

“Like everything I say doesn’t turn you on.”

For that, Loki gave zero warning when giving Thor’s super sensitive dick friction slipping himself up and empty (“Fucking fuck!”).

Balder came back to scream, “Come on!” again and the clock’s five minutes till said that and that the shower they both definitely needed would wait like Frigga’s judgment over how sex crazy Loki was making her boy wouldn’t.

If anyone was making anybody sex crazy, it wasn’t Loki but the one that looked like that in a freaking Federation sweatshirt and touched the top of Loki’s ass all tenderly when calmly walking down to the dining room.

Holding a glass of champagne, Frigga said, “Glad you both could join us.”

“’Course we were,” said Thor, taking a flute from Loki. “Right, Lo?”’

“Right.”

Balder shook his head next to Nanna in her year tiara like the two of them didn’t just happen to finish way, way sooner up in his room.

When all the clocks struck 12:00, they cheersed “Happy New Year” as idyllically as they did in the movies.

Loki shotted the champagne down.

Thor was also holding an empty glass. Both his arms scooped Loki in. “Happy New Year, baby.”

“Happy New Year.”

When Thor went in for a kiss, it’d have been too predictable to kiss back. So, Loki poked Thor’s champagne-y lips with his tongue.

Thor opened his eyes, pretending to be confused. He knew enough about Loki. “Really?”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“If you’re sure. It’s bad to start off the New Year with secrets.”

On the other hand, it was good to start it off with a jam. In any year, Loki was not going to restrain his body from embracing the feel of a jam, no matter where he was. Lucky for Thor, Loki was in front of him for Thor to see that Loki was just as limber on his two feet as he was on his back and side and front.

Loki, as he couldn’t stop doing, inspired Thor to let the jam move him.

While his awesome wife swayed her head and talked to him, Odin was absolutely doubling down on his decision to never treat Loki like a human being, but Loki smiled at him anyway.

#

Frigga had passed on the seed for the great thing that was a Thor hug. This Loki knew for fact by now. “I can’t overstate how happy I am that you came.”

“And I can’t how grateful I am that you wanted me.”

Frigga’s hands were hugging Loki’s arms. “I know how much you mean to Thor. Anyone that could mean that much to my son must be special.”

“There’s nothing like cynicism to make you immune to supernatural charm.”

Down the hall, Thor was talking to Balder and Odin in the foyer about hockey. He already had his scarf on like a dork. Loki’d gotten a little carried away with teeth last night.

“It’s good that this trip helped you two come to some realizations. Sometimes, a change of scenery can reveal what was there all along.”

“Nothing like your entire family judging you for not being a good alpha and bonding the omega you’ve brought home.”

“Family too can help in its own way.”

“Yeah.” And it could hurt too. “But honestly, I’ve had a great stay here and in no small part thanks to you. You’re a very good person. Thor’s very lucky to have you.”

“You have me too. My phone number does work.”

Thor playfully nudging Balder’s shin with his boot, laughing.

“Thor is a good man. He can be hardheaded, but never doubt that he cares. When he loves, he loves with his whole self. He’s like his father. Early on, I used to think that I could never love him enough to love him as much as he loved me, and I loved him deeply.”

“He is.”

“Trust yourself but trust him too. I know that you’ll take care of him, so I don’t need to tell you that. Take care of yourself. Thor will do his best, but he can’t know you as well as you know yourself, not yet at least.”

As candid as it was, ultimately all of her advice was indirectly for Thor’s benefit. That said, Loki couldn’t begrudge her for actually caring about her son’s well-being. If he got to benefit from that, he wouldn’t complain.

“Lo!” Thor shouted.

“We’re coming,” Frigga said. “We’re coming.”

Balder hugged Loki and told him, “You’re weird, but I like you.”

“I like you too, Balder. Even if you have a ‘mommy’ kink.”

Balder reddened and then, glared over at Thor who’d heard nothing but Frigga and Odin debriefing him on how to stay alive. He tried to resist a hug from Thor, but Thor was Thor, and in a dark timeline, was shoving people into lockers, so Balder hugged Thor.

“Bye, Mom.”

“Bye, Frigga.”

She waved with Balder leaning on her shoulder.

Odin wasn’t the stay in the doorway to wave as they backed out of the driveway type, too firewood-chopping and whiskey for more than one of those gruff hug pats with Thor outside the airport. “Take care of yourself.”

“Will do my best.”

Loki didn’t chance humiliation by going in for a hug. He dodged it, which still stung when Odin settled for a hand squeeze and nod. “Thank you for having me.”

“Look after Thor too. That’s your job now. Officially. Take it seriously.”

That, funnily, annoyed Thor.

When Odin was gone, Thor glowered at the back of the truck. “Don’t know what crawled up him.”

“He was sad to see his boy go.”

Thor softened, and it was just for him. “Let’s go.”

In retrospect, holding Thor’s hand all lovey-dovey through the airport’s entrance doors was something Loki totally saw coming when he was walking through them the other way.


End file.
